Twitpay.me comes out of beta and is live - send people money via twitter

[mouser]

Twitpay is a new site that let's you send small amounts of money to other people very quickly and easily using twitter.

It seems like a nice idea with a clever implementation, and most of all they've focused on making it EASY to gift money; as I've written about before, I really think that is the key to making this kind of approach succeed.

As fellow travelers in the very small circle of sites that are dependent on micropayments, I think we should be supportive of efforts like this, and wish them the best success.  Any time it becomes easier for normal people to fund each other through small donations, I think the entire community benefits.

Today, we’re taking Twitpay out of beta and putting it out there for everyone to use.
As we’ve thought about what’s important about social payments, a few things stayed in the front of our minds: they have to be really easy, and they have to be secure. We got the easy part down on Day 1: just tweet the money and it goes! If you haven’t used Twitpay yet, here’s how it works:

• 1. Post a tweet like  ”@ev twitpay $1 because Twitter is awesome”
• 2. There’s no Step 2!

http://www.twitpay.me

Also check out the twitpay blog (interesting reading): http://blog.twitpay.me/

those of you that follow our forum carefully may remember that we had a bit of a shock when we saw the original twitpay mascot, which was a bird carrying a coin in his beak -- the same symbol as our mascot Cody (well he doesn't have a coin in his beak on the site banner now because of the fundraiser); but after some discussions with twitpay they decided to give their bird a bag of money instead of a coin, and now our mascots are good friends -- except that i'm afraid our Cody may get a bit jelous about Mr. Money Wings' newfound wealth.

[gexecuter]

The site is down for me, weird. Maybe too much traffic?

[mouser]

i posted wrong url at first, try now.

[justice]

So what happens if your twitter account is compromised and you're registered with twitpay? Can twitpay prevent people from sending money on your behalf? They say they're not a bank but is twitter happy that money is transported over their service? This is not a problem on DC because you pay on donationcoder.

I have this same concern with logging into services using facebook / google accounts. Especially google with google checkout, if google account gets compromised then they can login into loads of places plus use your credit card? Maybe I'm not understanding it right but it's a bit concerning.

[mouser]

im not sure there is much of a risk since i believe the twitpay idea is that you are basically only making unofficial PROMISES when you twitpay someone.

so its very much like sending donationcredits.. in that no money actually changes hands until you go manually process the payments you promised at amazon.

like donationcredits this is a very safe system in terms of individual users, becuse even if someone hacked into your twitter account and promised someone a million dollars, nothing actually happens until a real human (you the payer in the case of twitpay, or me in the case of donationcoder handling a request to have money "cashed out") manually goes and puts through the actual payment (cashout) later.

I *think* that's the idea.

[justice]

Ah yes clever clogs. I thought it was up to to 'receiver' of money to collect, but if it's up to the payer to follow up on their promises then it is indeed safe enough.

[app103]

It's very similar to tipjoy, which also has a twitter payment option.

It's up to the person sending the promise to make good on it, and up to the one the page belongs to, to claim it once they do. Tipjoy sends you an email to remind you to pay, once the amount you have donated reaches $5. (you still have no legally binding obligation to pay it though). If you don't pay, the people you tipped can't receive the funds.

The main difference between the 2 services is that tipjoy allows tipping on any website or blog...not just twitter. And you can tip anyone...not just people with tipjoy accounts or those having buttons on their site. One could create their tipjoy account and register their sites and find money there waiting for them already.