Google's in-house team today launched a new service called Qaya, which will make it easy for creators to set up new web store fronts where they can sell their products and services directly to viewers. The project was incubated at Area 120 as part of a broader restructuring of the company. After many of its early projects were spun off from Google, the project elevated its status.
The new project, Qaya, was co-founded by Nathaniel Naddaff-Hafrey, the resident founder of Area 120 who worked at job market Kormo with the goal of "the next billion" Internet users, especially those in markets such as India and Indonesia.
After hearing from dozens of creators about how difficult and time-consuming it is to build their digital business, he came up with the idea of Qaya, a service that allows them to sell directly to their fans. Several other members of the Qaya team are also creators, bringing their own experience with existing creator tools. They learn from their own efforts and other creators they talk to about the need for a flexible, code-free product that can act as a one-stop shop where creators can make money through their work and better connect with their audiences.
Qaya's solution allows creators to build personalized webfronts that showcase their products and services, as well as other digital downloads, which can then be linked to their YouTube shelves and integrated with Google Search and Google Shopping. Through these stores, creators can include photos, files or eBooks, digital art, photo filters and presets, productivity templates, knit patterns, fitness videos, and more. The company says it can host up to 1,000 products per storefront.
Each store also gets its own custom URLs in the form of qaya.store/your-name or yourname.channel, which can be used in place of the links they place on social media sites, which are created through "biolinking" solutions available today like Linktree or Beacons.