Online person-to-person payments service Dwolla has put together and released a simple method to send money to others on Twitter, requiring only their username, the dollar amount, and the hashtag #dwolla. Naturally, to send money, you need a Dwolla account.
This is what a successful, money-sending tweet looks like:
Why would one want to send money over Twitter, and through a more traditional method? The first reason is somewhat obvious: the transaction is public. Now, you probably don’t want to pay certain, ahem, bills on Twitter, but if you are sending a friend payment for a lost bet, making the shame public could be a net positive.
Expect people to ostentatiously tweet their charity donations, I would expect.
However, the flip side to the creation is ease. As Dwolla noted in its short blog post announcing the new product, you can now “send money to friends, nonprofits or even merchants without having to login to the Dwolla mobile app.” That could save you time, provided that folks don’t mind being paid over Dwolla.
Chirpify
If this sounds familiar, you are likely thinking of Chirpify, a company that has been a pioneer of the nascent pay-over-Twitter concept. Its Tweet-A-Beer campaign was a smashing success, and the company went on to raise $1.3 million earlier this year.
Whether Chirpify has managed to find traction is an open question. TNW recently covered a partnership between the company and an author to turn Twitter into a bookstore.
Buying things online is now normal, and rapidly becoming the norm. Will buying things on social channels become mainstream as well? It sounds unlikely, but then so too did having your parents execute the bulk of their holiday shopping on the Web.
Top Image Credit: Shawn Campbell
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