You know by now that I’m a self-professed “sports racer” and loyal devotee to the cult of the Ze. A few days ago, he unveiled “GimmeSomeCandy” which allows users to sponsor the show in micro-formats up to $50. The promotion seemed to be quite successful and was attracting lots of attention from the likes of Scoble and Jedi Master Brian Clark. Clark summarizes the program in this way:
Ze Frank: think struggling brilliant independent. Now imagine that
your daily video blog has taken your long-time site into the top 5,000
to 4,000 sites in traffic on the Internet. How do you make money at
daily video blogging without feeling like a complete sell out?Apparantly the answer might be micro-duckie sponsorships — little
icons that appear now under each episode that, when you roll over them,
display a 50-character message that isn’t even hyperlinked. To borrow a
Ze Frankism: worst ad unit … EVER! But at $5, $10 or $50 for a
whopping duckie, they are priced for fans and minor patrons. In the
last couple of days, he’s sold thousands of dollars in micro-duckie
sponsorships each day. I’ve found myself READING THEM because they are like fortune cookie hiakus or one-line classifieds.
However, on today’s show Ze announded that Google has dropped the “GimmeSomeCandy” promotion because they “don’t support donation sites.” Amazing.
“Recently strapped with YouTube, Google seems to have a problem with
video blogs that can actually generate revenue. Way to move the
internet forward, jackass.”
If you go to GimmeSomeCandy page, you get the following message from Ze when trying to checkout…
“sorry, Google has disabled our account.
they state that they do not permit services such as this.
(funny, their competitors do.)”
Google Checkout’s page says this:
You may only use the Service to process a Payment Transaction for a Product that is purchased from a Seller through a legitimate, bona fide sale of the Product. The Service may not be used to process a Payment Transaction, or otherwise transfer money between a Buyer and Seller, that is unrelated to a purchase of a Product.
So, um… Google wants Ze to produce a real product in exchange for cash? What definition of “product” is Google using here? I hate “quoting” the dictionary, but Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of Law says this about “product”…
1 : the result of work or thought
So… Google is saying a product is a thing and a thing only? That sorta goes against the whole idea of the web, doesn’t it?
Further down, Google elaborates a little more…
At this time, Google Checkout is designed primarily for transactions involving tangible goods. However, you may also process transactions for intangible goods (such as digital or downloadable products), services, subscriptions, and donations (if your organization is 501c3 tax-exempt).
All transactions you process must abide by our content policies.
Ah, tangible goods or 501 c3 charities. Still, that doesn’t make sense. Why be prohibitive about other donations? PayPal allows this. Is there something I’m missing here?
I’m with Ze on this one, and Google should make a public display of hip-ness and reinstate the program. Don’t piss off the thoughtshapers of the internet who will determine the future and long term success of Google Checkout. As Google moves forward in their attempts to take over the life (and death) of every user, they have to be careful to keep up their rep with those of us paying attention.
Fans are already saying “fuque google” in the forums.
http://www.zefrank.com/theforum/showthread.php?t=1698
This kind of chatter can seem harmless, but if this really is a web and these people have a few friends, it doesn’t take too many exponents to create a real headache for Google Checkout.
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Sam Harrelson lives in Asheville, NC and is pursuing his PhD in Religious Studies (Early Christian Origins). Sam is also an award winning blogger, speaker and online community strategist.
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My interpretation of that is that you can only do donations if you'e a 501c3, but that anyone can do digital or downloadable products. I would say that what Ze is doing, essentially online advertising, seems to be okay by that text.
But maybe I'm just reading it wrong.
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http://markdaycomedy.wordpress.com/2006/10/11/t...
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Keep the comments coming. I'd love to hear what everyone thinks of this move by Checkout in light of Paypal, etc.
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Big fan of BlogHUD, btw. Great platform and awesome tool for SecondLife!
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If Ze re-words the promotion page to make is painfully clear that he's selling something, then contacts Google, I bet they'd re-instate his account.
Most likely this was caused by some intern/new hire who was tasked with auditing sites using Checkout to verify that they're in compliance and, being disgruntled at having such a craptastic assignment while working for the oh-so-great Goog, they made some rash decisions.
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