14 DAY TRIAL // With Google’s latest moves in the social gaming market and with the impending, but still unconfirmed, launch of Google Me, there is one Google product that could benefit the most from it, Checkout. Google’s payments platform hasn’t been a massive success, but the company is plowing ahead and trying to build up the business. And it may finally scale to a point that will allow it to take on PayPal, by integrating it with its social gaming and virtual payments platform.
Google is rumored to be building a proper Facebook competitor, dubbed Google Me, to be launched as early as this year. Google hasn’t made any announcement, but has confirmed that it is working on ‘something’ in the space. And gaming will be a major component of the company’s social networking moves. It has recently acquired gaming company Slide. It is also said to have invested a considerable sum in Zynga, the social gaming powerhouse.
You can expect games, from Zynga and others, to be front and center in Google Me. There is also Chrome OS to consider and Google has already shown games on the platform. Virtual goods sales power the entire social gaming industry and many vendors rely on PayPal to provide the payments system.
In fact, Zynga is PayPal’s second biggest customer, behind only eBay which owns the payments company. If Google could tap into that and position Google Checkout as a viable alternative, it may get its hands on very lucrative and potentially very large market. With that, Checkout may finally reach a scale where it will get more adoption.
Right now, few websites implement Google Checkout, because not that many people use it or need it. But if nobody will offer it as a payments option, no one is going to use. This deadlock has prevented Checkout from gaining any meaningful market share in the years since its launch. Google, while quick to ditch Wave, it’s sticking to its guns and still believes it can turn Checkout into a success.