This is why Google wants to replace the wallet altogether

Sep 17, 2011 16:21 GMT  ·  By

Google Wallet promises to replace the need for cash, the need for credit cards, IDs, coupons and so on. Well, Google Wallet promises to replace the wallet.

But they're mostly empty promises for now, since Google is still working on the product that was supposed to launch this summer.

In the meantime, it though about keeping the eager fans happy so it revealed the first Google Wallet commercial, a spoof, of sorts, of a classic scene from the 90s-defining sitcom Seinfeld.

You may remember an episode where George Constanza is very proud of his oversized and overstuffed wallet, in which he keeps every receipt or trivial piece of paper he ever had.

The wallet ended up exploding when he tried to stuff just one more thing into it. It's that scene that Google has used for the Wallet commercial.

Interestingly enough, it's not a spoof or a parody, not really, since it uses much of the original footage, perhaps spruced up a bit for the digital age.

There are only a couple of changed sequences, in which a Google Wallet flier replaces the one for guitar lessons in the original scene. Here are the 'wallet' scenes from the original episode.

For those that remember the series fondly, the Google Wallet add may be a trip down nostalgia lane or it may be Google soiling a good memory. For everyone else, it's probably not going to be that compelling.

Still, Google Wallet is not even here yet and even when it launches, it will be in a few places and will support only a small number of the features Google plans to build into it, payments and perhaps deals from its Offers site.

But Google Wallet holds a lot of promise, the fact is, there is a clear need for such a technology and if Google doesn't build it, someone else will.