SAN FRANCISCO -- Online payments giant PayPal kicked off its second annual Innovate developer's conference by unveiling new mobile, social media and digital goods payment options along with a slew of partner announcements from both small and big players including Facebook and Verifone.
Mobile Express Checkout, a new secure two-click checkout feature, extends PayPal's mobile payments platform. PayPal said it expects more than $700 million in mobile payments to go through its payment infrastructure by the end of 2010 out of the $1 Billion in payments it expects to process from all sources.
The new PayPal Mobile for iPhone 3.0 app includes a location-based feature that lets users find the closest businesses to their location that accept PayPal payments. Merchants can also use the service to send coupons and promotions to users in their area.
PayPal partner Bling Nation is testing its BlingTag local services offering in the San Francisco Bay Area starting next month. Consumers tap the BlingTag proprietary microchip, which can be attached to a mobile phone, to receive discounts and other merchant offers at checkout. They can also opt-in to "like" a business to their Facebook page.
PayPal execs emphasized that the overriding goal behind all their offerings is to reduce the friction or steps consumers need to take to complete an online transaction.
"What we're really excited about is the new extended login feature," Laura Chambers, senior director of PayPal Mobile, told InternetNews.com. With extended login, PayPal Mobile users can opt to store their login info so they don't have to re-login each time they want to make a PayPal payment on different mobile sites. Chambers said that PayPal Mobile 3.0, which is currently available for the iPhone, is going to be available for Android devices "soon."
PayPal said the mobile solution is easy to deploy for merchants that already have PayPal's Express Checkout on their online stores. The company said merchants testing the new feature reported double-digit sales growth on their mobile stores after adding Mobile Express Checkout.
PayPal also announced a deal with payments provider Verifone, giving merchants the capability to accept both credit cards and PayPal payments using Verifone's PAYWare mobile app. Customers can also "bump to pay." The application incorporates Bump Technologies' feature that lets registered users physically bump devices to transfer money.
FreshBooks announced its participation in the new PayPal Business Payments program powered by the PayPal X global payments platform. A key feature of Business Payments is the reduced service fees. Instead of the typical 3 percent service charge for using a credit card for online invoices, the fee is a flat $5.50.
"We're the leader in online invoicing," said Freshbook's CEO Mike McDerment, noting the company's customer base includes lots of software developers and freelancers. The new pricing model is an ideal solution for any invoice over $150, the company said, and it helps move payments from a "the check's in the mail" model, to more immediate cloud-based payments.
The biggest improvement in PayPal's digital goods service is giving users the capability to buy in the context of the application, such as virtual goods in an online game. In the earlier version users had to switch to PayPal's site to make a payment.
Launched as a pilot earlier this year, PayPal announced it's making the digital goods payments service more broadly available this quarter -- including to developers on Facebook.
"Gaming, is often an indicator of what's to come," said Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, in remarks on stage. She noted Facebook already boasts more gamers than the top three gaming consoles combined, led by companies like Zynga (Farmville) with more than 100 million users.
In a Q&A with reporters following the keynotes, PayPal's Osama Bedier, vice president of platform, mobile and new ventures, compared the state of ecommerce to where the Web was in the mid-1990s. Back then we were asking 'How big can the Web be?' and no one predicted how big it became," he said.
As PayPal and others simplify online payments, Bedier said online commerce has huge upside potential. In five years he said he expects half of all mobile payments to be made on mobile devices.
"I can imagine ten years from now, only ten percent of PCs will do online payments, the rest will be done on devices," he said. "We're pushing to get there as fast as we can."
PayPal said the sold-out Innovate conference attracted over 2,500 developers, almost double the number who attended last year's inaugural event.
David Needle is the West Coast bureau chief at InternetNews.com, the news service of Internet.com, the network for technology professionals.
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