The pseudo-news about Google's online payment service is a cut above the usual rumor mill if only because the story broke (no reg req) in the Wall Street Journal. And why shouldn't Google compete directly with eBay's PayPal? I only hope Google doesn't call the new service Google Wallet as reported—it makes me uncomfortable when Google flagrantly imitates Yahoo!. Let's call it GooPal for now.

Some observers have wondered if Google Auctions can be far behind, forgetting that Google is already deeply involved in the auction business via AdWords. One simple implementation of GooPal would be as the transaction mechanism woven into AdWords revenue and AdSense payout. But the meaty speculation, it seems to me, lies in whether Google will transform Froogle and/or Google Catalogs from a window-shopping platform to a true shopping platform. (Google Catalogs is currently in a state of neglect.) Now that Google has convinced thousands of merchants to improve Froogle results by submitting jproduct feeds, how big a step would it be to throw a shopping cart into the mix? Here, imitation of Yahoo!'s Wallet-fueled e-commerce platform would be a good thing.

Given Google's populist and democratic impulses, I am aquiver with hope that GooPal will become the standard merchant solution for microbusiness. As things stand now, PayPal and an army of competitors offer merchant accounts of varying quality and cost to online entrepreneurs. Google is just the force majeur to tie it all together into a killer merchant app, especially for selling virtual product such as music files and e-documents. Make it turnkey, hands-on, and brain-dead simple. THAT would be stepping well into the future, leaving Yahoo!, PayPal, and every Web host on the planet in the dust. Call it Google Juice.