DISQUS

VentureBeat: Facebook to test payments system with developers “in a few weeks”

  • Dave McClure · 7 months ago
    wow, no comments?

    jesus this is arguably the best piece on this topic in months, and not even any haterz around.

    nice job eric. now just need to go get some comment trolls from TC to spice this up ;)

    (seriously: great story)
  • Jay Cuthrell · 7 months ago
    Here ya go Dave:

    This is exactly the right move. The money isn't in minting the currency as much as it is running the economy and facilitating the creation of economies. There will be a tax structure, fees, and other tolls that will draw from sources for transactions.

    The legal notions of estates, assets, and where virtual currency comes into play will be something the smart folks will need to consider. A living Facebook Will would be a great extension on this if non-repudiation or other PKI enabled constructs were applied to tie back to SSN/FEIN, etc...

    in real life see also: http://www.berkshares.org/
  • Eric Eldon · 7 months ago
    Thanks for the kind words, Dave. And thanks for the funny comment, Jay.
  • Jay Cuthrell · 7 months ago
    Keep on rockin'
  • igniguy · 7 months ago
    i 've always wondered how you guys manage to keep the trolls away (my guess is that keeping it cool with twitter+oprah does it)
  • Albert Lai · 7 months ago
    Agreed. Great story. I'm surprised i missed it earlier. The interesting opportunity here IMHO is a unified social-networked micro currency. Currency that allows for payments in and outside of facebook for microtransactions with FBconnect.

    Finally I can get paid for all these comments I'm plastering all over the interwebs.

    Tip please? =)
  • Eric Eldon · 7 months ago
    I'll tip you once you pay me for writing the article, Albert ;)
  • John O'Brien · 7 months ago
    Nice - been waiting for this for awhile...

    Hope it is promoted / marketed so that users begin to trust the ability for financial transactions to be done on the FB platform, also for transactions that are simply not micro-purchases.

    Bouncing out to third party systems like paypal / etc and the whole "I don't trust FB with my credit card" is a struggle sometimes when trying to move real money to buy goods across the platform.
  • NUNYA · 7 months ago
    I for one do not trust facebook with even true personal info.The guy that started it is an Extreme Partisan Hack and is an incredibly intolerant hypocrite!! I tell everyone do not put anything on FACEBOOK you don't mind them keepingThey already tried to keep personal info once people close their accounts and then "change"d their minds because of the protestsThet thing peope forget is once they convince more and more people to joing and say no we won't do that again,all it takes is them to "change" their minds again and do with your info what they want. Already in tight with the new Govment it is not hard to believe they wil hand over any info that thier Big Brother buddy wants in the future Fukk them =)p
  • igniguy · 7 months ago
    Yep,

    But you do trust the guys who made your credit card, who own all of your personal info, right? While it is true that facebook has had several blunders with privacy, you know what, your personal data are not as valuable as you think; social advertising is still less profitable than search-based advertising - they still struggle to make money.
  • TJ · 3 weeks ago
    geez tell us how you really feel........lol
  • Andrew Korf · 7 months ago
    John O'brien - seconded.

    Great post here, but who is leading the charge in providing an alternative payment system to paypal or google for real goods? and reducing the hefty transaction fees? noca.com has been working on it, but slowly. I am particularly interested in how opensocial, facebook connect and oAuth (twitter login) begin to play a role in ecommerce systems - and vice versa - any recommend current posts, tweets, articles on that front?

    Jay, Eric - great meeting you guys at SXSWi.

    -Andrew
    @andrewkorf
  • Sardar Mohkim Khan · 7 months ago
    I guess this is truly going to prove beneficial not just for Facebook but for the countless developers leveraging the social network platform. As always, Eric has hit the keys with a pretty detailed and informative post.

    There is always a need for a universal currency and the web is not exception.
  • Andeas · 7 months ago
    This is something for WSJ to have a look at. Creating separate accounts for things is always a hurdle. But if paying for a news item is just one click away with my Facebook account, I would most likely click if I want to read something interesting.
  • igniguy · 7 months ago
    This is not the first time they 've announced it,but i hope this time they mean it. it is a win-win situation for both facebook and developers. a quarter-of-a-billion market awaits ... what are they waiting for?
  • Dominik Faber · 6 months ago
    Really nice! Maybe you can change then your mybonuz points to facebook points...
  • untacticcal000 · 5 months ago
    Whatever Face Book, My Space or Twitter come up with I think it's fairly obvious to state that they should have a reward system in place, whereby they donate a percentage of all combined credits into one charity pool. It's kind of like scraping some of the credits off users, but you would have to stipulate this in your TOS? As the economy worsen, just imagine the good you'll all be doing your local communities and aid agencies around the globe.
  • untacticcal000 · 3 months ago
    If you make a payment system, let your users become aware of the 'Tax System' and allow a percentage to be donated into a 'POOL' whereby you can run "votes" for which charity is to be nominated say, for each month's tally. If you do something like this, you will instantly engage your users to become more interactive and if they can see that their efforts are contributing towards good, it might create a chain-reaction across the board. I'm not sure but where monetization enters the arena I think the FCC in America want some form of regulatory control and if you openly declare the taxation requirements to user's, it might help the whole process run more smoothly.