Have you ever been working on something then had some huge company just go ahead and release exactly what you're building? Yeah, um, that totally didn't just happen to me.
Whats the harm in shipping both? I love that Google is doing this, and I hope all the best for people that benefit from it, but the term "Google" is not synonymous with _charity_ for me personally. Get your app out there with some official branding from respectable charities ("certified by the red cross etc") and I would DL yours just as quick as I would DL something similar from Google.
Read my subsequent comment. Maybe I should make it an edit because it's really important, but I don't ACTUALLY give a shit, and in fact am actually really happy to see Google seeing the same opportunity as me and my partners/clients. They actually ARE synonymous with charity and have a much, vastly grander vision. I actually hope very strongly to reach out to Google to partner on what they're doing once we go live.
My team for Startup Weekend Hong Kong did something similar as well [1], and we're still planning on bringing it to market.
Our goal was to use charity to incentivize people to form habits - we started with exercise, but it could easily extend to things like quitting smoking or spending more time reading. When you sign up with our app, you choose two charities - one that you like and one that you don't - and if you stick to your commitments, we send your money on (minus our overhead fee) to the one you like. If you don't stick to your commitment, we send your money to the other one.
In all seriousness, it's pretty cool to see this small bit of validation for what I'm doing. It's not my project (freelance work that I chose bc I liked it), not on the same platform, and not EXACTLY the same, so this is really nothing but a good thing. Still, threw me back on my heels a bit.
Release it anyway. There’s no telling how long this Google service will be around. Also, they haven’t really launched: it’s an invite-only Android app, only available in the US.
A solid idea! I'm pretty dedicated to not having a job and I'm pretty good at it, but if it was anyone but me (or something like that) I'd do it for sure.
i'm impressed with your belief in google. You can't just do it. It's a giant institution with rules and hiring process is formal and can't be done by the team.
I once saw a nice idea when I was traveling to Sofia in Bulgaria. When I withdrew money at an ATM it asked me at the end if I would like to donate 1 LEV (0.66 USD, 0.5 EUR) to Unicef.
I really liked it, because it's a very small amount of money, a big name (Unicef), and it's no hassle at all.
I don't know if there are enough ATM withdrawals for the sum donated this way to be significant at all. But if yes, I wish they would do it in other countries, as well.
And this is the real value of Bitcoin et al. As more and more commerce moves to the Internet, I become increasingly irked by the credit card processing "tax" levied by Visa/Mastercard. I long for the day we can yank those leeches off the legs of the Internet economy...
Of course, Bitcoin is also designed to charge a processing fee. This is currently optional, but it is entirely conceivable that this would change in the long run if Bitcoin ever sees adoption on a serious scale. This holds especially true given that mining awards will go down. Furthermore, services built on top of Bitcoin will have such charges as well.
I don't think economics as a science has a consensus theory that has withstood serious empirical shakedowns for explaining how high such fees end up in practice.
I'm very much behind on this since you wrote that two days ago, but I wrote my initial reply in the mindset of "what if Bitcoin becomes more pervasive" - as in: it gets increasingly used as an alternate currency. But of course your point still stands for the world today, and that other world will probably never come anyway.
Processors, issuers, and banks don't do fraud management for the merchant by default (though some banks may do it for the card holder). They _can_ do _some_ fraud management for merchants, but it costs an arm-and-a-leg.
> How quaint. You think processors, issuers, and banks do fraud management for the merchant. Sure, they _can_ do _some_ stuff, but it costs an arm-and-a-leg.
This sounds an awful lot like Philanthroper, which Mark Wilson eventually had to shut down. However, it's a slightly new angle, and I sincerely hope they succeed. I created a nonprofit Facebook app many years ago in the same space. It's tough, but Google has the resources to see it through.
It won't fly just like this - You can't just ask people to download an app and donate a buck a day. You need an incentive. This will definitely work if the $1 gets the donor an "item of the day" from the play store, which Google can most certainly give out copies for "free".
That seems quite cynical. Kiva is quite successful, and they offer no incentives at all; you just loan $25, wait for it to be repaid, then loan it out again.
