Should PayPal or anyone else worry about Google Wallet integration with Gmail?
No.
Go ahead and mark this one down as one of those nifty features that Google puts out there without telling many people that sits around until they decide that it failed and they shutter it. In this case, it won’t necessarily ever be shuttered, but it will likely sit there as an obscure menu item like The Flying Dutchman at In ‘n Out.
The concept is this. Send money by “attaching” it through Gmail. It connects directly with Google Wallet and allows the receiver to do so without even having a Gmail account. It’s simple, elegant, and very easy to implement. It’s arguably easier to get going than Western Union or PayPal, but this is Google. They’re the masters of creating things that would be cool if they were willing to promote them to the world. Unfortunately, they normally do not. There’s simply too many initiatives out there right now in social and mobile. They don’t have the bandwidth despite thousands of employees and billions of dollars.
Will anyone use it? Watch the video below and decide if it’s right for you.
