Zong Hopes to Offer One-Click Android Payments - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Zong Hopes to Offer One-Click Android Payments - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com: "Zong Hopes to Offer One-Click Android Payments
By NICK BILTON

Apple’s iAd platform, when it is first used this summer, will display embedded advertisements on mobile devices. Some ads could have the ability to complete transactions.

This move by Apple could please iPhone software developers who wish to offer free mobile applications and still draw revenue through the ad platform.
Zong mobile platformzong.com Zong’s latest mobile platform offers a one-click buy option.

But mobile transactions on the Google Android platform are currently limited to Google’s clunky Checkout system, which has curbed the ability to perform embedded mobile payments with Android apps.

To try and solve the difficult Android payment problem, Zong, a mobile payment company, announced on Wednesday that it planned to offer a solution to these limited options with a new embedded mobile payment product.

The new payment solution will make it easier for developers who design applications specifically for the Android platform to charge mobile customers and will make quick purchases possible without having to go through the painful process of entering credit-card numbers or billing information on a mobile phone.

Zong avoids this by using a process called carrier billing, where payments are billed directly to a user’s mobile phone provider.

Zong hopes to make it painless for developers to include the payment system in apps by providing a simple one-click button that can easily be slipped into any Android application. The program is currently being tested in a private test of the software.

David Marcus, Zong’s chief executive, explained in an interview by phone that the latest announcement made it simple to charge customers within an application.

“This could enable Zynga to build a mobile Farmville with virtual transactions built into the application with a few lines of code,” Mr. Marcus said.

He said he believed it could also help to make Android devices more popular than Apple iPhones and iPads. “The Android platform is going to surpass the iPhone in market share over the next five years,” he predicted.

Mr. Marcus also said the company planned to start with Android and explore other platforms at a later date. “We would love to be on the iPhone, but because of Apple’s terms of service we just can’t do in-app transactions,” he said.

According to a company press release, Zong currently processes millions of payments a month on mobile devices and with virtual goods online. The company recently closed a $15 million round of financing led by Matrix Partners.

The video below shows an example of a Zong transaction inside an Android game.

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