Facebook Mobile Payments a Boon for Businesses
Facebook’s planned penetration of the mobile payments space, if done right, could yield substantial benefits for businesses that monetize their Facebook presence and streamline the process of converting Facebook followers into revenue. Facebook’s scheme for businesses logically culminates in mobile payments, and the company has been encouraging businesses to construct a Facebook presence and cultivate a following of customers to “like” and exchange information about the business with their broadened social networks. Physical merchants encourage customers to check in so they can boost visibility among the customers’ Facebook friends, and this initiative links to the Facebook Graph Search functionality so that Facebook users can identify music, restaurants, movies, and other things their social network favors. Facebook mobile payments enables businesses to simplify the process of tapping that social relationship for revenue. Other mobile payment providers such as PayPal or Internet currencies such as bitcoin suffer from a lack of critical-mass adoption. They are all proprietary payment frameworks on some level, but Facebook can capitalize on a vast active user base, and businesses and consumers can just click an extra button to make a transaction rather than installing and opting to use a different payment provider. Although Facebook mobile payments must contend with security and trust issues before it can become a thriving e-commerce engine, its convenience ultimately may trump security concerns for consumers.
From “Facebook Mobile Payments a Boon for Businesses”
PC World (08/16/13) Bradley, Tony