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
