Google, according to reports at the Niemen Journalism Lab, is “developing a micropayment platform that will be available to both Google and non-Google properties within the next year,” which most likely is an attempt to allay (well placed) fears with Old Media organizations that their businesses aren’t sustainable long term.

Newsprint organizations aren’t the only media companies these days looking to drum up extra income. Ars Technica, yesterday, announced that they were going to a tiered content model. GigaOM has recently developed a tiered service in their paid “Virtual Analyst Network.”

There were a number of interesting features that may or may not be enough to entice readers to fork over $50 a year at Ars, and as far as the public knows, the jury is still out on the ‘VAN,’ a concept that Mike Massnick undertook over at Techdirt several years ago for his niche.

Steven Hodson (of Shooting at Bubbles, Inquisitr, Winextra) and I sat down on the new daily edition of the CobWEBs podcast and discussed all of these things to try to come to a consensus on the viability of these various premium media models.

Listen to the episode below or directly download the MP3

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