clipped from www.news.com

“Most of the revenue things that we’re doing in the short term, their focus isn’t on building a large revenue stream,” Zuckerberg said. Adding a payment system just makes sense, he added: “With a lot of applications, people need to pay for different things…You could go with an example like SuperPoke where people are buying sets of icons or signals that they can send to people, which is purely a social gesture but it’s real capital that’s being exchanged, or if you go with an example like a book or a song or something like that…A lot of these things can be inherently social or have large social components, and just kind of further the type of communication that’s going on, but it involves real economic capital.”
  blog it
Call me a cynic. I’m still not convinced that facebook is worth what analysts have valued it at. I’m still not convinced that facebooks is the be-all, end-all of social networking systems. It is interesting to say the least, but the short-run steps show no sign of a long-term goal.

Sure Zuckerberg talks the talk. But adding a payment system? (fair disclosure: I work for PayPal / see about page for disclosure) I’d have to say that Zuckerberg may be treading into dangerous territory. Payment systems such as PayPal, or Google Checkout are not trivial. It may seem simple and both PayPal, Google and competitors make it look fairly straight forward. However Zuckerberg’s grand idea is dangerous to say the least.

Speaking from experience, let me point out a couple of simple facts about the card industry: Card companies largely refuse to hold their customers accountable for non-tangible goods. Some players in the market may get some treadway with the card issuers, but it isn’t a lot. Trading ktichy, and often stupid, web items are ripe for situations involving buyer’s remorse.

While Zuckerberg may push this down onto the developers, just being the the middle is enough to send many screaming from the field. Having to deal with the size and scope of fraud, security and support are not to be taken lightly.
Sphere: Related Content