A Google Goof in Android Online Payments?

December 14, 2010

Yet another Google Goof or YAGG? Maybe.

I don’t use an Android phone. I have one. I don’t use the Android online store. I visited it once. I don’t use an iPhone. I visited the App Store and found it too much like a 1950s Warner Brothers cartoon. So, I am not in a position to comment about the features, functionality, or search systems in these stores.

I am able to read. I just worked through “Google’s Checkout ‘Failure’ Now a Big Problem for Android” and was surprised to learn that Google has a lousy payments platform for the Android. With 300,000 Android phones activating every time the sun rises, I was surprised.

Here’s one of the passages that caught my attention:

Most Android users, including me, just don’t buy apps. This stands in marked contrast to the culture of paid apps over at Apple or RIM. One of the fundamental reasons for this is the lack of Checkout adoption. If Checkout were widely penetrated among consumers, as iTunes is, there would be less friction in trying to buy apps. Other systems are being tried, including carrier billing in some cases. And now Rovio, maker of the wildly popular game Angry Birds, has vowed to develop an in-app carrier-billing payment system that bypasses Checkout. This is reportedly based on frustration over the limitations of Android billing. The company will also let third parties use the system as well.

The article asserts that Google may have to buy a company to get what it needs.

The questions that occurred to me were:

Isn’t Google racking up a string of product disappointments?
How much social capital does Google have? If problems persist, won’t that capital be depleted more quickly than it can be accrued?
Will developers and customers just go some place else?

I don’t know much about Angry Birds. I do know about Angry Humans. At what point will pundits and poobahs assert that Google is broken when it attempts anything other than online search and ad injection?

Stephen E Arnold, December 14, 2010

Freebie

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Business strategy, ECommerce, Google, News, Technology

Comments

One Response to “A Google Goof in Android Online Payments?”

Google CEO Dates Two Phones at Once « Evan Kessler Dot Com on December 14th, 2010 3:03 pm

[…] A Google Goof in Android Online Payments? (arnoldit.com) […]

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.