Google, Square, and Banks Venture Into Mobile Payments, but Which Delivers Best Experience?

By Professor Pinch Recently, I got turned on to Rohit Bhargava. He has a book that will be coming out called Likeonomics.The premise is pretty simple. I took this straight off the Likeonomics website:

Likeonomics is a term that explains the new affinity economy where the most likeable people, ideas and organizations are the ones we believe in, buy from and get inspired by.

I've noticed this. In some of the things I've been talking about of late, I can see companies are looking at new and different ways to reach their customers, establish or build on existing relationships and inspire customers to not only buy, but share their experiences with others. This is the essence of Likeonomics.

(To see Charles Sizemore's piece on which Hathaway to choose, click here.)

Likeonomics has five basic tenets, and I want to focus on one in particular: simplicity. Again, from the Likeonomics website:

People are paralyzed by too much choice and nothing can kill an idea faster than complexity. The most iconic products and services of today, from the iPad (AAPL) to the Dyson Vacuum to the Flip Camera to Twitter all owe a great part of their success to their inherent ability to simplify everything about their experiences. Simplicity is the secret weapon.

(To see why Steve Ballmer's haters are aiming too low, click here.)

And as I read that, I started thinking about the events we've seen this past week around mobile payments. Everyone knows eBay's (EBAY) PayPal system is the predominant peer-to-peer (P2P) payment system out there, but as of this week the field has gotten a bit more crowded. Square has come out with a P2P device that turns a phone into a credit card point-of-sale terminal and a new Card Case for electronic payments at restaurants and stores. The banking triumvirate of Bank of America (BAC), JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Wells Fargo (WFC) have come out with their own venture to facilitate P2P payments, and there's also Google's (GOOG) venture with Sprint (S), First Data, and Citi (C). You can read a great synopsis on them here.

(To view Tony Daltorio's piece on Amazon's solid growth in the e-book business, click here.)

But in looking at the three, the simplicity of Square is what stands out to me. The experience of conducting P2P payments just appears to be so much simpler. So intuitive. I'm not declaring Square the winner in this space by any stretch. Frankly there are strengths and weaknesses to each participant's entry.

To read the rest, head over to Minyanville.