Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Facebook's Rich Valuation Based On E-Payments

Facebook's Rich Valuation Based On E-Payments That May Never Come
http://industry.bnet.com/technology/10008222/is-facebooks-valuation-based-on-e-payments-that-will-never-come/

This is an entertaining article. Anyone who lists Obopay as a leader in this domain is only looking at it from the perspective of having raised a lot of money versus actually accomplishing anything in the market. And, while Amazon is an incredibly successful ecommerce merchant, as a payment platform provider to others, not so much. PayPal, no argument. And as compelling as Facebook is to some, the likelyhood that if neither Google or Amazon can make their payment initiatives meaningful after pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into them, take a guess at my prognosis. There is nothing wrong inherently with Facebook credits, but it is unlikely to rock the payments world. It is just another layer on top of an already complicated and competitive landscape. p.s. As others have found out, the devil is in the details and the devil is expensive in the form of customer service and managing fraud and disputes. Playing around in your social network is entertaining and sometimes productive, but when you touch the user's wallets the rules change.