(Photo above Courtesy to MapData Sciences)What if iPhones had credit card capabilities? We already have access to numerous online ordering sites such as Amazon, eBay, and of course itunes. It’s only sensible that the next step would be physically allowing iPhones to be used as swiped cards.
Three major companies are competing for such an innovation. These competitors are going through the process of developing three different ways to adapt a magnetic strip to the iPhone. Recently co-founder and Chairmen Jack Dorsey of twitter released a new startup square this December. For more infromation here is the product's wedsite. (https://squareup.com/) Dorsey says his company will release its square-shaped credit card reader, each about the size of a quarter early this summer.
This “square” has attracted the attention of major investors such as Marissa Mayor, VP of Google products, Kevin Rose founder of dig.
According Crunchbase.com up to $10 million in venture capital is at stake.
(Photos above Courtesy to PMP Today)
Other companies such as VeriFone, and Mophie plan to release there own version of compatible accessories for the iPhone relating to credit cards.
Who might use a mobile credit card reader? According to Douglas Bergeron, the CEO of VeriFone, "The guy that comes to your home to detail your car, the repairman who comes to fix a broken faucet, the person who sells you a piece of art and maybe sells only two or three a week."Dorsey also says, "Signing up for Square is just a matter of putting your name and address and picture in our system.” These rival companies want to simplify things as much as they can for the user.
Three major companies are competing for such an innovation. These competitors are going through the process of developing three different ways to adapt a magnetic strip to the iPhone. Recently co-founder and Chairmen Jack Dorsey of twitter released a new startup square this December. For more infromation here is the product's wedsite. (https://squareup.com/) Dorsey says his company will release its square-shaped credit card reader, each about the size of a quarter early this summer.
This “square” has attracted the attention of major investors such as Marissa Mayor, VP of Google products, Kevin Rose founder of dig.
According Crunchbase.com up to $10 million in venture capital is at stake.
(Photos above Courtesy to PMP Today)
Other companies such as VeriFone, and Mophie plan to release there own version of compatible accessories for the iPhone relating to credit cards.
Who might use a mobile credit card reader? According to Douglas Bergeron, the CEO of VeriFone, "The guy that comes to your home to detail your car, the repairman who comes to fix a broken faucet, the person who sells you a piece of art and maybe sells only two or three a week."Dorsey also says, "Signing up for Square is just a matter of putting your name and address and picture in our system.” These rival companies want to simplify things as much as they can for the user.
According to bloggers from Techcrunch (http://techcrunch.com/), “What PayPal was to eBay, Square is to the real world”. Another blogger from Techcrunch said, "I can sell homemade t-shirts at football games, and take credit cards".
To me, the square sounds like a useful product with real world capabilities. Although, I found one issue with the square, it seems to offer too much control to the seller. The seller can set the price to whatever is being sold, there are no standards. Also you can keep return customers cards on file for future use. The only thing that separates you from their sweet credit is a signature. Also I never found any information wheather the individual must have an iPhone or must it be registered under a company. What I have found is that it is easy to get a virtual merchant account to take payments directly, alowing almost anyone and everyone to have a square.
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