What do you think of Twitpay?

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Permalink Reply by Doug Theis on December 19, 2008 at 9:46am

Good concept, with appropriate security. @chrisbrogan has addressed this idea a little lately. Twitter is a great venue for such giving.

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Permalink Reply by Noah Coffey on December 19, 2008 at 9:53am

From the site:
If you have over $10 in your Twitpay account (less applicable fees), you can spend your balance on an Amazon™ gift card, a Twitpay charity, or on Twitpay itself as the service is so brilliant.

It seems the person receiving money doesn't actually receive cash, only the option to buy Amazon gift cards or give the money away. Until that changes, I don't see it as anything more than another web toy (why not just send someone an Amazon gift card directly? No service fee and you can still tell them about it in a Tweet.)

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Permalink Reply by Darrin Snider on December 19, 2008 at 9:55am

Not to be cynical, because it sounds really cool and is a logical progression of the medium, but a) This can already be done with Paypal, so why do we need to add an unstable, insecure network like Twitter into the mix? And b) Who is going to police the Twitter/Twitpay borders when the Nigerian 419 artists figure out some way to exploit it?

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Permalink Reply by Erik Deckers on December 19, 2008 at 4:15pm

Dang, I was going to bring up PayPal, but you beat me to it.

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Permalink Reply by Noah Coffey on December 19, 2008 at 9:56am

If you really want to look at the future of innovation in online payments (and what the next generation of online payment facilitation apps will be built on), check out Amazon Flexible Payment Service (more for devs).

http://aws.amazon.com/fps/

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Permalink Reply by Lou Begnel on December 19, 2008 at 9:58am

I think a lot of it since it was a Startup Weekend Atlanta project only a few months ago. It may not be the final way to pay for things but it has the first mover advantage. I think people need to have more confidence in it before they use it as a service but that was the same with Paypal too. I follow a couple of people from there on my Twitter.

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Permalink Reply by Noah Coffey on December 19, 2008 at 10:01am

What I really want is to be able to buy sodas with my cell phone. I was promised this very thing when Bluetooth started to get all hyped up. My last 3 phones have had bluetooth and still I bang my head against the soda machine in our office with no change in my pocket.

If I can tweet my way to a soda, I will join your fan club.

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Permalink Reply by Kevin Makice on December 19, 2008 at 10:01am

There are three overarching factors at work here: convenience, trust, and use.

For Twitterers, using Twitter to handle some tasks and being able to respond in the moment are huge. However, not every integrated service is useful. People who use Remember The Milk rave about its Twitter integration, but heavy syntax can also be a big obstacle to use. For Twitpay or any other service to be accepted, a requirement for Twitter users may be to be as simple as possible. Shallow learning curve, natural interaction.

Trust is the biggest obstacle. There are already other service out there that people rely on, recognize and have testimonials to help evangelize. New stuff always attracts early adopters, but not as fast if real money is involved. There is another startup - TipJoy - that I think is equally interesting, with a similar strategy of a pledge-and-collect model. There are also philanthropic donation widgets around. The question for me would be less of should I use Twitpay than why should I use it over these other options.

Like all modern designs, there is a lot of potential for unintended use. Will TwitPay be primarily for commerce? For giving money to causes? For politics? For random acts of kindness? The context of predominant use will likely shape how much it is accepted.

I'm not in a position to test it out, with no spending power, even in pledge form, until I can get out of grad school. I love the idea of micropledging, though, and do think it can become a norm. I hope TwitPay and TipJoy find each other and maybe work together. They have overlapping interests.

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Permalink Reply by Erin McMahon on December 19, 2008 at 10:09am

Great idea, but I think it could use improvements. Would be nice if it would work with direct messages, for example, for more privacy, and also would be nice if you could get cash out of your twitpay account rather than having to spend thru Amazon or donate. Of course, the donation feature is great- it presents a lot of opportunity for nonprofits!

I'd just like to see it upgraded before I would use it. ;)

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Permalink Reply by Cindy Hartman on December 19, 2008 at 10:18am

I like the concept of transactions, and it'll be interesting to see how this progresses. I don't, however, care for the Amazon gift card and this would keep me from participating.

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Permalink Reply by Lou Begnel on December 19, 2008 at 10:57am

If you would like to follow the Twitpay guys on Twitter they are: @lance, @ivey, and @twitpay

Lance Weatherby
@lance In @twitpay meeting with @tensigma and some investors while @ivey ...

They seem to be great guys. I hope that Startup Weekend Indianapolis company Shoutnow gets the publicity that Twitpay has. Their service is a voice messaging version of Twitter. Equally cool as Twitpay.

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Permalink Reply by Pat Coyle on December 19, 2008 at 11:59am

Tell us more about ShoutNow. I never heard of it until now

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