While demonstrating their new mobile payment product Google Wallet today, Google executives offered some insight into how it will make money.
Google executive chairman and former CEO Eric Schmidt gave the demonstration with Google vice president Stephanie Tilenius at the D9 conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. Users should be able to tap their phones against compatible point-of-sale devices and use the app to make payments. They should be able to use the Wallet app to redeem offers from Google’s upcoming deals product, Google Offers. Schmidt and Tilenius said the Offers will be the real moneymaker for Wallet — in fact, Google doesn’t plan to charge a fee for the app or for transactions.
They also emphasized that they see Google Wallet as something that isn’t limited to Google’s Android phones (although that’s where it works for now). Wallet is an app that should hypothetically work on other smartphones, Schmidt said: “There’s no intent to favor any one platform.” Does that mean we’ll see Wallet on iPhones, Windows Phones, and BlackBerrys anytime soon? We’ll see.
As for Google Offers, Tilenius also announced that the first deals will go live tomorrow. As previously announced, the program is starting in Portland, and it will expand to San Francisco and New York later this summer.
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