Slashdot Mirror
PayPal Offers $150,000 In Developer Challenge
blackbearnh writes "As previously reported on Slashdot, PayPal recently released a series of new APIs that allow developers to embed PayPal into their web sites and applications without requiring the user to go to the PayPal web site to complete the transaction. To encourage developers to use these new APIs, PayPal is offering two prizes totaling $150,000 for interesting new applications. The entry deadline to register ideas is December 16th, and O'Reilly has an interview with the director of the PayPal Developer Network that covers the details of the contest. In it, Naveed Anwar talks about why PayPal is throwing money at developers. 'When Facebook opened up their platform, it allowed people to work in that particular environment, in the Facebook environment. When the iPhone opened up their platform, they allowed people to work in their environment which was build the applications on the iPhone. When PayPal was looking at opening up its platform, we are not limited by one particular area. We go into the enterprises. We go into social networking. We go into all the places where payment as a solution is needed. And if we can actually reduce that barrier of entry — because at the end of the day, when anyone is building out a business and anyone is building out an application, they're looking at ways of monetizing it.'"
This is nothing more than a ploy to significantly underpay for an enormous number of applications.
Not to mention that their new API just turns paypal into a processing center.
What? Grammar aside, if that's true, it's rather more newsworthy than this somewhat confused story,
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
Entering my PayPal login details on some random webpage, without even the convenience of being able to verify the https://www.paypal.com/ in the address bar?
Phishing begins in 3... 2... 1...
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
by sticking your cell phone into the strippers ass. Thats pretty much the only useful thing I can think of.
Monstar L
When Facebook opened up their platform, it allowed people to work in that particular environment, in the Facebook environment. When the iPhone opened up their platform, they allowed people to work in their environment which was build the applications on the iPhone. When PayPal was looking at opening up its platform, we are not limited by one particular area. We go into the enterprises. We go into social networking. We go into all the places where payment as a solution is needed. And if we can actually reduce that barrier of entry — because at the end of the day, when anyone is building out a business and anyone is building out an application, they're looking at ways of monetizing it.
And in other news, PayPal has announced their newest spokesperson, Sarah Palin.
I can just see it now.... You will even be able to "twitter" your money away. Well they "twitter" about everything else in life, why not how much you spend or how much you make? Sounds like a really dumb idea, so I wonder how long before someone actually implements it?
Paypal effectively introduces a price floor for internet transactions. Until that goes away a ton of commerce is effectively stifled.
The government (in USA anyway) has a prerogative to regulate interstate commerce, and they should be working to open up commerce on the internet. There are literally billions of dollars waiting to be spent in increments as low as fractions of a cent at a time, and yet the infrastructure and fee systems are keeping that commerce from taking place.
If fees are low, maybe news sites can somehow integrate this and let users make micropayments for stories.
I'm waiting for "All it ever did was keep the #'s secure" and "you only ever have to trust 1 person online" to seem like a BAD thing. I mean, there has to be a problem with that for them to be throwing that way. Maybe you can explain it to me.
Call it a feature that lowers bandwidth costs by reducing overhead incurred by page redirects
Give it away for free for 6 months, then charge a 0.5% convenience fee on all transactions.
For fun, in 1 year, start charging a 0.5% legacy implementation fee on all old-style transactions.
There you go. Where's my $150k?
UTF-8: There and Back Again
PayPal operates like, and should be regulated like, a bank. The way they have treated their customers, like me, and many, many, many others, should be a warning to all; You can't afford to do business with PayPal. They will seize your money, and when they do, it will be months before you see a resolution. The horror stories are true: I know, I have mine.
Mod parent up. PayPal needs to become a regulated bank. Until then, take your business elsewhere, to sites that accept credit cards. If someone can't qualify for a merchant account, you probably don't want to deal with them anyway.
Leave it to Slashdot submitters to tell you about a contest 2 days before the deadline. The challenge was announced 3 weeks ago.
That's not the first time it happens too.
While credit cards may seem like the most natural thing to have in North America, it's not the case everywhere in the world.
I still don't get why international wire transfers are ridiculously expensive, and credit is the only way (through banks) to pay over the Internet without fees. I'd very much like a card that uses my actual money, not credit, in the very same way. (So I didn't need a stable source of over-minimum income to get one issued.) But until then, paypal at least accepts local wire transfers.
Like Ebay? Since they only accept PayPal now, and no other form of payment.
Sure baby, I'll give you my phone number...in Hex
>> PayPal needs to become a regulated bank. Until then, take your business elsewhere, to sites that accept credit cards. If someone can't qualify for a merchant account, you probably don't want to deal with them anyway.
You are confusing things. PayPal is fine for the buyer, and is usually better that creating another account to buy one time something.
For the seller, they are terrible^4. This is why Google Checkout is taking over.
I buy things from Google Products all the time. As a buyer, there is a lot of value in that simple checkout process.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
i agree that paypal needs to be regulated, but most problems are people not following the instructions. like when you accept payment make sure it's only from verified people and send only to confirmed addresses. and use a tracking #, insurance and signature confirmation for expensive items. the #1 rule is only send to confirmed addresses. i haven't sold on ebay for a long time but my rule was anything over $15 or $25 had to go to a confirmed address. my auction stated that all paypal payments had to be sent to confirmed addresses.
I don't know about the US, but in Europe PayPal's User Agreement says that it is "licensed as a Luxembourg credit institution". Also I don't really get where all the hate for PayPal comes from.
Yes I read a dozen times that they froze the account of SomethingAwful or some loud-mouthed bloggers under dubious circumstances, but for me it always worked just fine. Actually I really like PayPal because it allows me to send a seller money that is instantly credited to his account, without trust issues on either side or credit card processing for the seller.
I also like the security of going to PayPal's site so I can verify the payment, which is why I am quite sceptical of this API change. But apart from that I really don't see how PayPal is bad in any way for me as an ordinary customer.
Developers should be using public data from daily voting in such ways like Facebook or iPhone aps. Love to see more govt aps to help people understand laws, vote against them (in realtime, hopefully BEFORE they become law to grind those gears to a HALT!) Upgrades upgrades upgrades! :D
Free SCV
http://www.opensourceg.com - A Man Can Dream
Paypal _is_ a bank in several jurisdictions (including the entirety of the EU), but not in the US.
Hey, braniac, you don't like PayPal... Don't do business with them.
Google's Checkout is a failure, much like most every other Google product other than search. Now that Google Checkout is the same price (or in some cases, more expensive) than PayPal, yet less feature rich, I assume it will just disappear in time like every other PayPal challenger.
I agree: while they should perhaps have some limited regulation, I've been using them for nearly as long as they've been around without any problem, for both personal and business. A really big plus is that I don't have to have the responsibility of dealing with credit card security. I would *never* enter paypal credentials into a random web site, but haven't looked at the new api yet to see if that's really what they're doing. It would be really stupid for them to do that. I'd venture to guess that fraud handling is already their biggest expense, and that would just make it worse.
People keep crying "Oh noes! PayPal seezees my monies!" Why the hell do you leave money in there?
Once a week, transfer everything out of PayPal to your real bank; you know, the one regulated by the FDIC, has potential to earn interest, and you use to pay all your bills.
So, you take a fee-hit every time you do so. Either suck it up, buttercup and consider it a business expense --OR-- figure out how much you would spend on a real Merchant Account so you can accept credit cards, plus the time, energy, and resources for building a custom, secure commerce system, and so on.
For my website, PayPal works just fine. And for that 1 in 5000 customer, I maintain a PO Box for sending me Money Orders
At my store, about 1 in 100 use Paypal if given the choice. You're losing out on a lot of business if you don't accept credit cards. Try authorize.net or if you want to stick to Paypal, Payflow. Paypal is fine for a hobby business, but if you're trying to make a living, you need to take plastic.
I got a warning from PayPal saying that I am getting close to my 'send limit'. I've been using it for probably 6 - 8 years now, and now they're telling me I have to 'confirm' my identity in order to continue using their service. Confirmation requires me 1. giving them my bank account number or 2. getting a PayPal credit card.
Why the fuck would I want to do that? And if it really is for security purposes, why can't I just fax my driver's license?
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
The difference with Google Checkout, at least in the couple of years I have been using them is that they have been fair to me as a seller so far.
My score is over a $100,000 in problem free transactions with Google Checkout. One $600 charge back on my account that is still pending, but they did not freeze my money while I disputed the charge back. They have contested with the credit card company on my behalf. Yes, they may ultimatly give it back, but they did not freeze my account while doing it.
With Pay Pal I did like $25,000 worth of transactions with them, before the fucked me on an $8,000 charge back without as much as asking if it was legit or providing me with any way to defend myself.
Dollar for dollar, Google has cost me way less money. Especially considering i got in on the early first year discount prices.
Paypal in the EU is a regulated bank, registered as such in Luxembourg: Daily Telegraph article
"Paypal has never been anything but a processing center. "
Actually it's a bank located in Luxembourg since a couple of years.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2007/tc20070614_606853.htm?chan=technology_technology+index+page_top+stories
Wrong! Paypal is only a bank for European customers. Here's an exact quote from the article you linked to "PayPal is not regulated as a bank in the U.S."
"Liechtenstein is the world's largest producer of sausage casings, potassium storage units, and false teeth."
I have taken the honor of making the first application to utilize these API's. My application is attached to my email address and all you have to do is email me your credit card number, along with your full name and full SSN (don't panic, the SSN is only needed as a Primary key for the database). Help me and paypal get started testing! Email me payments to JoeFisher@blatantscam.org, I'll take that $150,000 any time you're ready, paypal.