Zong (payments provider)

Last updated
ZONG
Industry Telecommunications
Mobile communications
Payments
Founded2008;15 years ago (2008)
Headquarters Menlo Park, California, United States
Products Electronic payments
Mobile Payments
Owner eBay
Number of employees
80
Website zong.com

Zong was a mobile payment company that allowed users to make micropayments on the Internet if they have a postpaid mobile phone. [1] The payments were charged to their mobile phone bills by the mobile operator. The company was acquired by eBay in 2011 [2] and disappeared in 2015. [3]

Contents

Zong payments were only accepted by online games and social networks, and the service can be used to purchase virtual goods[ [4] ]. Zong was awarded the 2009 Frost & Sullivan Best Practices Award for New Product Innovation in the Mobile Payments category. [5] In May 2015, Zong disappeared from the web without any public declaration. The website now simply redirects to PayPal.

History

Zong appeared in 2008, as a new mobile payment solution in the USA, an offshoot of Echovox that allowed users to pay for items online directly through their mobile phone bills. This was made to boost the business development of this disruptive application. [6]

In 2011 the former CEO of mobile payments technology developer Zong, David Marcus sold Zong to PayPal as he become the new president there. [7]

In May 2015, Zong disappeared from the web without any public declaration. [8]

Services and Partnerships

Zong focused on social networks and online games. They were useful to people who did not have a credit card and those who wanted to make small purchases online. Zong allowed them to pay with their mobile terminal and the amount was then debited by the mobile operator.

The partnership of Zong with mobile operators allowed them to charge customers using short numbers. On March 12, 2009, Zong announced to stop short messaging services and target its mobile payment system. Zong published an application programming interface to allow developers to sell and publish content to mobile customers worldwide. [9]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PayPal</span> American multinational financial technology company

PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support online money transfers, and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper methods such as checks and money orders. The company operates as a payment processor for online vendors, auction sites and many other commercial users, for which it charges a fee.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mobile payment</span> Payment services via a mobile device

A mobile payment, also referred to as mobile money, mobile money transfer and mobile wallet, is any of various payment processing services operated under financial regulations and performed from or via a mobile device, as the cardinal class of digital wallet. Instead of paying with cash, cheque, or credit cards, a consumer can use a payment app on a mobile device to pay for a wide range of services and digital or hard goods. Although the concept of using non-coin-based currency systems has a long history, it is only in the 21st century that the technology to support such systems has become widely available.

A micropayment is a financial transaction involving a very small sum of money and usually one that occurs online. A number of micropayment systems were proposed and developed in the mid-to-late 1990s, all of which were ultimately unsuccessful. A second generation of micropayment systems emerged in the 2010s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prepaid mobile phone</span> "Pay-as-you-go" mobile phone service

A prepaid mobile device, also known as a, pay-as-you-go (PAYG), pay-as-you-talk, pay and go, go-phone, prepay or burner phone, is a mobile device such as a phone for which credit is purchased in advance of service use. The purchased credit is used to pay for telecommunications services at the point the service is accessed or consumed. If there is no credit, then access is denied by the cellular network or Intelligent Network. Users can top up their credit at any time using a variety of payment mechanisms.

Mobile marketing is a multi-channel online marketing technique focused at reaching a specific audience on their smartphones, feature phones, tablets, or any other related devices through websites, e-mail, SMS and MMS, social media, or mobile applications. Mobile marketing can provide customers with time and location sensitive, personalized information that promotes goods, services, appointment reminders and ideas. In a more theoretical manner, academic Andreas Kaplan defines mobile marketing as "any marketing activity conducted through a ubiquitous network to which consumers are constantly connected using a personal mobile device".

Mobile app development is the act or process by which a mobile app is developed for one or more mobile devices, which can include personal digital assistants (PDA), enterprise digital assistants (EDA), or mobile phones. Such software applications are specifically designed to run on mobile devices, taking numerous hardware constraints into consideration. Common constraints include CPU architecture and speeds, available memory (RAM), limited data storage capacities, and considerable variation in displays and input methods. These applications can be pre-installed on phones during manufacturing or delivered as web applications, using server-side or client-side processing to provide an "application-like" experience within a web browser.

Mobile banking is a service provided by a bank or other financial institution that allows its customers to conduct financial transactions remotely using a mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet. Unlike the related internet banking it uses software, usually called an app, provided by the financial institution for the purpose. Mobile banking is usually available on a 24-hour basis. Some financial institutions have restrictions on which accounts may be accessed through mobile banking, as well as a limit on the amount that can be transacted. Mobile banking is dependent on the availability of an internet or data connection to the mobile device.

The term mobile commerce was originally coined in 1997 by Kevin Duffey at the launch of the Global Mobile Commerce Forum, to mean "the delivery of electronic commerce capabilities directly into the consumer’s hand, anywhere, via wireless technology." Many choose to think of Mobile Commerce as meaning "a retail outlet in your customer’s pocket."

Safaricom PLC is a listed Kenyan mobile network operator headquartered at Safaricom House in Nairobi, Kenya. It is the largest telecommunications provider in Kenya, and one of the most profitable companies in the East and Central Africa region. The company offers mobile telephony, mobile money transfer, consumer electronics, ecommerce, cloud computing, data, music streaming, and fibre optic services. It is most renowned as the home of MPESA, a mobile banking SMS-based service.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Google Pay Send</span> Mobile payment system developed by Google

Google Pay Send, previously known as Google Wallet, was a peer-to-peer payments service developed by Google before its merger into Google Pay. It allowed people to send and receive money from a mobile device or desktop computer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Windows Phone Store</span> Digital distribution platform for Windows Phone

Windows Phone Store was an app store platform, developed by Microsoft corporation for Windows Phone letting users installing various apps on their device. It initially launched with Windows Phone 7 in October 2010. With the rollout of Windows Phone 7.5, Microsoft unveiled the online Marketplace that offers, over the air installation of apps. In August 2012, Microsoft renamed Windows Phone Marketplace to Windows Phone Store. In 2015, Microsoft announced that Windows Phone Store would be killed out and replaced by Windows Store which would act as a unified store for all Windows-powered devices. This process was complemented by the Apps on Windows website, an interim solution before the unified Windows Store.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Facebook Credits</span>

Facebook Credits was a virtual currency that enabled people to purchase items in games and non-gaming applications on the Facebook Platform. One U.S. dollar was the equivalent of 10 Facebook Credits. Facebook Credits were available in 15 currencies including U.S. dollars, pound sterling, euros, and Danish kroner. Facebook was hoping eventually to expand Credits into a micropayment system open to any Facebook application, whether a game or a media company application. Facebook deprecated Credits in favour of users' local currencies.

Braintree is a Chicago-based company that primarily deals in mobile and web payment systems for e-commerce companies. The company was acquired by PayPal on September 26, 2013.

An app store is a type of digital distribution platform for computer software called applications, often in a mobile context. Apps provide a specific set of functions which, by definition, do not include the running of the computer itself. Complex software designed for use on a personal computer, for example, may have a related app designed for use on a mobile device. Today apps are normally designed to run on a specific operating system—such as the contemporary iOS, macOS, Windows, Linux or Android—but in the past mobile carriers had their own portals for apps and related media content.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Google Play</span> Digital distribution service by Google

Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android operating system and its derivatives, as well as ChromeOS, allowing users to browse and download applications developed with the Android software development kit (SDK) and published through Google. Google Play has also served as a digital media store, offering games, music, books, movies, and television programs. Content that has been purchased on Google Play Movies & TV and Google Play Books can be accessed on a web browser and through the Android and iOS apps.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zettle</span> Swedish financial technology company

Zettle by PayPal is a Swedish financial technology company founded by Jacob de Geer and Magnus Nilsson in April 2010. Launching its first app and service in 2011, the company offers a range of financial products including payments, point of sales, funding and partners applications. The company was acquired by PayPal in 2021.

Google Play Services is a proprietary software package produced by Google for installation on Android devices. It consists of background services and libraries for use by mobile apps running on the device When it was introduced in 2012, it provided access to the Google+ APIs and OAuth 2.0. It expanded to cover a variety of Google services, allowing applications to communicate with the services through common means.

YooMoney branded as ЮMoney, formerly known as Yandex.Money, is Russia's second largest electronic payment service after "Sberbank Online" according to a 2020 research by Mediascope. It is an online payment service that works with two types of clients — individual users and merchants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Google Pay (payment method)</span> Mobile payments platform developed by Google

Google Pay is a mobile payment service developed by Google to power in-app, online, and in-person contactless purchases on mobile devices, enabling users to make payments with Android phones, tablets, or watches. Users can authenticate via a PIN, passcode, or biometrics such as 3D face scanning or fingerprint recognition.

Google Wallet is a digital wallet platform developed by Google. It is available for the Android, Wear OS, and Fitbit OS operating systems, and was announced on May 11, 2022, at the 2022 Google I/O keynote. It began rolling out on Android smartphones on July 18 while co-existing with the 2020 Google Pay app.

References

  1. "Zong Lets You Bill Web Apps To Your Phone". TechCrunch. 2008-09-08.
  2. McMahan, Ty (July 7, 2011). "EBay's Zong Deal: Mobile Payments Are All Fun & Games". WSJ Blogs: Venture Capital Dispatch.
  3. "Official page".
  4. Leavitt, Neal (2010). "Payment Applications Make E-Commerce Mobile" (PDF). Computer. 43 (12): 19–22. doi:10.1109/MC.2010.357. S2CID   15681768 via leavcom.com. Zong vice president of product and marketing Hill Ferguson, "Android permits third-party payment services for developers to use in their apps. We recently launched an Android SDK for apps that let users make purchases without entering credit-card information, usernames, or passwords."
  5. Harnick, Chris. "Mobile payments to grow fast and furiously in 2010: Zong".
  6. Johnson, Andrew (2011). "Zong Expands Mobile Billing". American Banker.
  7. Segall, Laurie (2012). "PayPal taps mobile chief as its new leader". CNN.
  8. "Zong on LinkedIn".
  9. "Where to find Zong – Facebook, IMVU, Playdom, and more". Zong. 2010-02-16. Archived from the original on 2014-07-01. Retrieved 2014-06-24.