Dorsey, who co-founded Twitter along with Biz Stone, Evan Williams, and others in 2006 stepped down from his position as CEO in 2008. There has been a lot of buzz about his current project, which allows the iPhone and the iPod Touch to be used as credit card readers. The product, known as Square, would come in two parts, a small plastic cube that plugs into the iPhone and an app. As reported in a story by CNET, the connection between the device and Dorsey was made by Coolhunting, who says:
The innovation is in a small, plastic card reader that fits in to the headphone jack of an iPhone (or iPod Touch) and transfers the credit card's swipe data to the app. After the employee enters the amount to charge, the customer confirms by scrawling their signature with their finger and then either one enters the customer's email address to send the receipt to. The payment is processed by Square for a small percentage plus a fixed fee; the funds are transferred directly to the store's bank account, cutting both time and complexity on the processing side. The customer's receipt includes a map showing the location of the transaction which is handy for those who record, sort and file such things.
One interesting note is that Dorsey feels that the company can keep costs low enough to give the device itself and the app to customers. Apparently, he feels that it can be manufactured for about 40 cents each. The revenue for the company, which is called Square-Up, will come for taking a fixed fee for each transaction, plus a percentage of the sale price on a sliding scale according to the price of the item purchased by the customer and processed through Square-Up. One must admit that companies such as Visa International have turned this sort of processing into a multi-billion dollar business, and it is certainly possible that Dorsey could do the same. It is absolutely a better business model that is in place at Twitter just now.
No comments:
Post a Comment