What is Google Wallet?
What's cool?
Google Wallet is the wallet for
the 21st century.
Incorporating all the ways we spend money today into one, easy to use
application, this technology will grow fast and has much potential. The Google Wallet application has the ability
to store rewards cards, works as an online shopping account (similar to PayPal®),
and syncs automatically with Google Offers.
Rewards cards can quickly add up in a “normal” wallet depending on the person, and especially for the everyday mom. Putting rewards all in one electronic location makes them much more manageable and accessible. The online shopping account differs from PayPal® in that it pulls funds directly from your Google Wallet account, allowing all of your purchases, online and offline, to stay in one location—the palm of your hand. Google Offers is a complimentary service that provides users with relevant discounts and coupons presented by merchants. Rather than searching for coupons in magazines or missing in store deals by a few hours or days, you can relax with Google Offers, which shows you deals and coupons relevant to your proximity to stores. If you take a vacation to Destin, Florida, you’ll be offered deals from stores in that location, only for the time of your stay. Also, the application for Google Wallet locks with a PIN number, and Google argues that their wallet is safer than the leather one in the seat of our pants or purses.
Google Wallet incorporates every facet of the purchasing experience into one location, allowing us to stop multitasking. In Rewired, Larry Rosen maintains that the current thought today amongst psychologists is that multitasking is bad. It slows down our task completion rate. Google wallet is a good example of a piece of technology that helps us cut back on our multitasking; because it cuts back on the need for so many different ways of processing purchases, shopping is now much simpler and free of multitasking.
-Louis Anzalone
What's not cool?Rewards cards can quickly add up in a “normal” wallet depending on the person, and especially for the everyday mom. Putting rewards all in one electronic location makes them much more manageable and accessible. The online shopping account differs from PayPal® in that it pulls funds directly from your Google Wallet account, allowing all of your purchases, online and offline, to stay in one location—the palm of your hand. Google Offers is a complimentary service that provides users with relevant discounts and coupons presented by merchants. Rather than searching for coupons in magazines or missing in store deals by a few hours or days, you can relax with Google Offers, which shows you deals and coupons relevant to your proximity to stores. If you take a vacation to Destin, Florida, you’ll be offered deals from stores in that location, only for the time of your stay. Also, the application for Google Wallet locks with a PIN number, and Google argues that their wallet is safer than the leather one in the seat of our pants or purses.
Google Wallet incorporates every facet of the purchasing experience into one location, allowing us to stop multitasking. In Rewired, Larry Rosen maintains that the current thought today amongst psychologists is that multitasking is bad. It slows down our task completion rate. Google wallet is a good example of a piece of technology that helps us cut back on our multitasking; because it cuts back on the need for so many different ways of processing purchases, shopping is now much simpler and free of multitasking.
-Louis Anzalone
Even though Google Wallet seems like a great convenience, it is currently a very limited technology in the United States, and there are potential social implications impending widespread usage.
As it stands now (20 Mar 12), there are only twenty-three vendors that accept Google Wallet listed on the official website. None of these vendors are Single-Tap Merchants either. This means that the Google Offers features of the program are not accepted anywhere in our city. In addition to having trouble finding places to use Google Wallet, it is only compatible with one phone on the American market—the Nexus S 4G by Sprint. This is a relatively new phone on the market having been released less than a year ago. Limiting this technology even further are the limited payment options. The only two types of accounts you can link to your Google account are Citi MasterCard and pre-paid accounts held by Google. I think that these limitations combined really diminish the effect that Google Wallet can have in its current stage. Google is making efforts to work around all of these issues already, so they are only temporary and not the main focus of the negative argument.
It is much more important to consider how Google Wallet will impact our daily life if it is widely implemented. The concept of numbers is a very important step in human development. Wolf speaks of it briefly when talking how it is related to learning to read in Proust and the Squid. It is required for abstract thought about math. Without a firm grap of this concept, everything from counting to using equations becomes almost impossible. Children grasp the concept of numbers through hands on interaction with counting. If you can count objects in one group and add them to the count of another group, you can perform addition. If you can see and count ten objects, you can imagine ten groups of ten objects each or multiplication. Google Wallet removes the need for counting physical money. If children would start using this technology before they have a firm grasp on the concept of number, it could greatly impair their mental math skills. The other main concern with the app is that this app will increase a "have verses have-not" trend seen in society today. Can you imagine the last time you had to wait behind someone writing a check? It seemed like it took an eternity because we have become so used to quick, electronic transactions. The swiftness of electronic transactions has prompted many retailers to stop accepting checks completely. This technology has the potential to replace debit cards. There are many reasons why Near Field Communications readers will be preferred over credit card swipes. There are no moving parts and no chance of getting an inaccurate read, for instance. Because NFC will only be available on smart phones, there is a great portion of the population who will not be able to use this technology. What would happen if vendors started only accepting NFC devices?
-Andrew Griffin
This device makes me nervous. The fact that it's only available for smart phones shows some of its limitations. If public places started to only accept these devices, then it would force people to either adapt and get the program, or start paying with cash always. Secondly, I feel that because physical money will be essentially eliminated, users will have to use great self control to ensure they are keeping track of expenditures correctly. Most people buy things more impulsively when using a credit card as opposed to cash, so this only feeds that impulse. Overall, I feel that this movement toward a paperless monetary system is inevitable, but I still have my reservations.
ReplyDeleteI don't like the idea of using my phone as my wallet. I feel uncomfortable with the idea that if I lose my phone, then I'm losing my wallet, too. It would cause even more dependency on mobile devices. And despite the rise of smart phones, there are still people that don't have a smart phone to use this kind of app on. Converting completely to this kind of system would leave a lot of people out. I'm also concerned about how people will think about their money. With even the use of cards nowadays, people don't realize how much they're really spending because it's not physically in their hands. Google wallet would just amplify that. Seriously, I think Google wallet might help bankruptcy, especially if you're in college. I'm already having trouble just keeping up with the money on my debit card, and though I've yet to try it, I know that using cash would save me money just because I know how much I'm actually spending.
ReplyDeleteI think the technology is cool. Phones can do everything else, why not trust it with your money too? A lot of things have been leading up to this, such as being able to take a picture of a check and deposit it to your account from the phone and online banking that can be accessed with any phone that can connect to the internet.
ReplyDeleteWhile convenient for those who already use their phones for everything, I don't think we'll be seeing a major transition any time soon. It'll just be an interesting option. Cash is still the preferred payment method at most vendors.
I am actually really interested in the idea of having my wallet on my phone. Like Jocelyn said, I don't think that there is going to be a major shift from physical wallets to the Google Wallet, but I think the Google Wallet would be really convenient. I don't think it would dramatically increase society's dependence on smart phones, because I think that the people who use the Google Wallet would already be pretty dependent on their phones. The only thing that worries me would be hacking. The security features for the Google Wallet would need to be pretty extensive.
ReplyDeleteThe Google Wallet certainly has some attractive capabilities; being able to track your expenses on your phone and having ready virtual coupons both would save time and help with budgeting. However, it cannot be denied that the ease of spending aggravates the spendthrift behavior encouraged by credit and debit cards. Like most technology, G Wallet has the potential to be useful if it can be accompanied by a tutorial of some sort on how to use it responsibly.
ReplyDeleteI think this is definitely a cool technology. I find it very convenient to have everything on my smartphone, because I would have less things weighing down my pockets. And I think since America has already embraced and transitioned to a mainly card based system, I think it can change again to a smartphone system to be even more efficient.
ReplyDelete