everything old is new again
over the last few days, there's been a lot of buzz about PayPal mobile.
I must be turning into a fuddy duddy cos I just don't get what's novel about being able to use your phone to do a money transfer, or use your phone to pay a retailer, or use your phone to order things out of a catalogue.
The only new thing I see is that PayPal are cutting out the requirement to authenticate yourself when making a payment by phone, instead they seem to be trusting Caller ID. As Bruce Schneier points out, this is probably not a safe thing to do.
I don't mean to belittle whoever built this thing, I'm sure it was a lot of fun to work on, with all sorts of interesting challenges to overcome and fun toys to play with. Maybe Cameron Reilly will set me straight on this, but I just don't see what problem this product is actually solving. (BTW Cameron, I'm still game to make that bet if you are)
Updated 2006-03-24 - It has been suggested in some quarters that PayPal is safe because SMS can't be spoofed. Look Harder, Homer!
Comments
Have you seen the systems that do ticketing via your mobile? i.e: Instead of a paper ticket with bar code, they send you the bar code as an image to your phone. Then you just wave your mobile under the scanner, and you're in.
I love that concept, but I'm too tight to buy a mobile phone that does images.
Anyway, I'm imagining a situation where you rock up to the cinema, see what's on, sms to the number that's listed beside the film, the bar code is returned in your receipt, then you proceed to the turnstyle.
i.e: No queue (except at the turnstyle and the candy bar)
Of course I haven't thought through the logistics too much.
I'm not sure you need paypal to achieve this though.
Like all these things, you need more than just the concept or the technology, it needs to be widely available, secure and easy. It's an interesting question though.
Posted by: Harry | March 24, 2006 03:31 PM
Let's seperate two concepts here. When someone buys a ticket, they are making a payment in exchange for a token that is later exchanged for goods & services.
Both the payment and the token can take "electronic" or "physical" forms. i.e. you can pay by cash or by credit card, and get a paper ticket or a electronic code back.
In the first example, the phone is storing an electronic token. This adds some value, since you are eliminating the need to deliver a physical token. (i.e. no need to queue up or pay for postage).
The thing about using the phone to make electronic payments though is I can't see what value this has over any of the existing, widely deployed, debugged and understood systems for making electronic payments, i.e. with a credit or debit card.
E.g. for the second example (smsing the movie you want to see), why bother involving the phone at all? why not just swipe a credit card through the turnstile?
Posted by: Jonno | March 24, 2006 04:31 PM