Google Wallet Service to Rival PayPal
According to a WSJ article, Google plans to offer an online payment system similar to eBay’s PayPal.
For Google, based in Mountain View, Calif., a payment service could represent a significant expansion beyond online advertising, which generated 99 percent of its $3.2 billion in revenue last year, the Journal said. Online-payment providers typically take a commission on each transaction.
The article also states that some believe the service’s code name is Google Wallet. Expanding into payment services will help make Google less dependent on advertising, which accounts for almost all of its revenue. Nothing has been confirmed by Google.
The news coincides with PayPal’s launch of Website Payments Pro.
Update: Gary Price discovers the Google Payment Corporation.
Michael Nguyen | Search Engine Marketing | Comments (4)
June 23rd, 2005 at 9:23 am
I think the WSJ may have overstated the ambitions of Google Wallet project (and then the other media jumped onboard their speculation) as the Google CEO came out the next day and said that they are not pursuing anything in the space that PayPal dominates.
I’ve always found that PayPal works great for person-to-person payments, for subcription payments and receipts, and for buying from companies that sell though other sites, like eBay. I’ve never had a problem with it and I’ve been using it for a lot of years.
I don’t really see a need for a separate wallet program — and I’ve tried several of them over the years, including MSN Wallet and eWallet. I mostly just tried those to take advantage of lucrative trial offers. I’ve used a password and form-filling identity utility to store my information locally for years and I use PayPal frequently to make my other payments.
June 23rd, 2005 at 9:53 am
Ken:
I totally agree - take a look at my new post. I think Google Wallet may lead to pay-per-sale advertising. What do you think? (Place your comments over on the new post so we can get a discussion going.)
January 21st, 2006 at 8:16 pm
[...] Battelle on Google Wallet SocialPatterns on Google Wallet SearchEngineWatch on Google Wallet AP story on this Business 2.0 blog post on this Delicious Tag: GoogleWallet Technorati Tag: GoogleWallet WSJ Article StellarBay on this USA Today on this Seattle Times on this Hitchiker’s Guide to 650 on this SiliconBeat on Google Wallet Charlene Li on Google Wallet Tech Beat on Google Wallet Meg Whitman on Google Wallet Infectious Greed on this “it is seismic stuff” GMSV on Google Wallet (saying the service will not be p2p, which really questions whether it should be on TechCrunch as a Web 2.0 play ) [...]
May 4th, 2006 at 8:32 am
Very informative
Thank you