Google Moves on Money, Music and Merchandise

Google came out firing yesterday and the intended targets were three of its biggest rivals, Apple, Amazon and the financial services industry.

With Apple in mind (and Spotify, as well), Google launched a monthly music service that for $9.99 offers users the ability to listen to unlimited songs.

For Amazon, it proffered its InstantBuy API (application programming interface) that streamlines buying stuff with Android phones.

But perhaps most significantly, Google Wallet will now enable the sending of money via email, enormously simplifying tech-enabled finance, simultaneously reducing concerns about safety while providing it with the scale required to make it the major business that bankers, retailers and techies have hoped it would become.

The three announcements are significant because in one breathlessly fell swoop, Google has used its existing technologies and customer base to challenge the core franchises of its three most prominent, successful competitors . The strategic audacity is compelling. Google employs arguably underutilized or sub-optimized assets to attack its rivals, at little additional cost to itself. And it does so by focusing its attacks along some of the most significant axes for scaling tech monetization: convenience, finance and ecommerce.

There will, of course, be competitive responses to these initiatives and first mover advantage is not necessarily sustainable. But by redeploying assets it already owns in order to reduce its rivals precedence in key sectors, Google has demonstrated its intellectual and operational ascendancy. JL

Chris Velazco reports in TechCrunch:

Google Wallet support has been baked into Gmail, so users will soon be able to send each other money by simply shooting each other emails.
Phew. Google just spent three hours or so showing off new developer tools, APIs, service overhauls, and the occasional gadget, but not everything the search giant rolled out today got a turn under the spotlights at the Moscone Center.
In the coming weeks and months, a dollar sign will start popping in Gmail accounts of people who already use Google Wallet, and a quick click lets users define the recipient and the amount they’d like to send along as an attachment. Since all of these transactions run through Google Wallet, the usual caveats are in place — sending funds from a connected bank account is totally gratis, but those who prefer to pay with credit or debit cards are subject to an additional 2.9 percent fee tacked on. You also need to be over 18 to take part in the funding fun, though.
Google is far from the first company to tackle the concept of sending money via email — JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo rolled out a method of transferring funds to people if you had their cell phone number or email address two years ago, but the setup process involved could be more than a little tedious if the recipient wasn’t a member of the same bank. At this point, it’s too early to pass judgment on Google’s approach, but the company seems intent on making the process much easier on all the parties involved, even if the person receiving the money isn’t a Gmail user.
More importantly, it’s possible that folding a level of Wallet support into Gmail could see adoption of the payment platform tick upward. After all, Google said around this time last year that Gmail played home to 425 million users, and a considerable chunk of them will eventually find themselves able to transfer money without many headaches involved. Google’s announcement of its Instant Buy APIto streamline the process of buying things from within an Android app could certainly play a role in expanding Wallet’s prominence. These developments may not seem as downright prominent a push as, say, a Google-branded Wallet card that would solidify the service’s presence in meatspace, but former Wallet chief Osama Bedler is out, and that ship has sailed.