Google Wants To Be Your Bank, Too
from the Gpal?-G-Money? dept
Is there anything Google won't eventually launch on its own? There were some random rumors earlier this week that Google was working on their own iTunes-type offering, but now the Wall Street Journal and Reuters are reporting that Google is getting close to launching a PayPal-wannabe payment system, nicknamed Google Wallet (not quite as fun as "G-Money" would be). The rumor is based on a panel discussion where an e-commerce consultant said some of his clients had been approached by Google about using such a system. Of course, Yahoo had their own PayPal wannabe for a while, called PayDirect, that they eventually shut down after no one used it. Even eBay had their own PayPal wannabe that no one used before buying PayPal. Despite that, Google certainly seems to be pretty good at getting people to adopt their offerings -- and if they can really improve on the PayPal experience, a lot of pent-up frustration directed at PayPal could drive plenty of users to the Google solution. Just one more step down the path for Google to be competing directly with eBay, apparently.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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G-Money
I love google. I love their search, their maps, their gmail, and other things too. I keep hearing of more and more things that they 'may or may not' get into and it makes me nervous. I would think that unless there was some serious money coming back in my pocket instead of going to theirs that any attempt to be paypal will fail by anybody. I don't know why google would want to even try.
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Re: G-Money
gmoney.com
:E
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Re: G-Money
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You mean you don't use other people's banks?
Or you could wear sunglasses, carry a white cane, and use pocket binoculars to do the same, because you "need" the binoculars to see.
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No Subject Given
It was called MSN Wallet.
That Google sho is thinkin' fo itself these days.
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Good for them
Not only will Google be likely to try to be more reasonable to protect their 'do no evil' brand, but it seems they would have enough clout to force PayPal to actually compete and perhaps provide better service. Once Google does this, surely Google auctions is one of the next steps.
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Strategic Focus?
After their initial offering, I would think it would be hard for google to maintain an accross the board competitive advantage for it's new offerings.
Perhaps they could built up a small stable of core projects and then flipped them out and made a bit of cash. Otherwise I would think they would be diluting their brand, unless they could keep some central theme, like Virgin.
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Re: Strategic Focus?
Maybe their whole strategy is to simply do everything everyone else has already done before, but in a way that takes a long term approach to what's good for the user.
AOL has previously tried to do everything Google is doing, but these efforts always came with an unasked for icon like "Get $$$ to refer Friends!" and other tray barnacles. Google never shoves this crap down your throat.
Not to mention that Paypal IS expensive and IS operating in a virtual competitive vacuum.
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Re: Strategic Focus?
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No Subject Given
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One way...
Would cost Google very little (once G-money expands beyond EBay), and would give EBay money for nothing.
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Re: One way...
I think this is a good entry point for google wallet because paypal will be discontinuing their bill pay service in august, which for many of us is a feature that's really important.
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Re: One way...
Hugh Olliphant
Currently: Group Product Manager at PayPal
Past: CEO at gMoney Corporation; Oracle; Putnam Hayes and Bartlett
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google wallet
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WHEN?!?!?!
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GO google 2 HELL WITH PAYPAL
I WILL GIVE ALL MY TRANSACTIONS TO GOOGLE , thats about 20 thousand transactions a year... CANT WAIT GO GOOGLE
P.S YOU KNOW PAYPAL WILL NOW OFFER A VOLUME TEIRED DICOUNT TO TRY AND RETAIN THE VOLUME CUSTOMERS , PAYPAL TO LITTLE TOO LATE....
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Subscription/Recurring payments
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check out Google Checkout!!!!
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=google+checkout&btnG=Search&meta=
At this point it's still a little secret and NOT on the Google Labs directory.
Thanks Google!!!
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