When PayPal announced that it was opening up its payment platform to third party developers in the summer it was ostensibly "to accelerate innovation", says Osama Bedier, PayPal's VP of product development and the man in charge of PayPal X, as they've chosen to call it.
Cynics might suggest is had more to do with mounting competiton from Amazon and Google in the online payment processing marketplace and a desire to become less reliant on its parent eBay for transaction volume (currently at 55%).
Whatever the reason, Bedier tells me that 600 developers are now on board busily thinking up new ways to develop online payments. For example, one team is developing one-click payments using mobile phones that recognise bar codes; another is working on a way groups of people can split restaurant bills amicably in one payment transaction. Online giving organisations can see obvious benefits in making online payments easier.
Micropayments - below £1 say - have not been commercially viable so far, but Paypal is hoping that opening up their platform will help reduce transaction costs - something that should prove attractive to the online games industry (companies like Playfish and Zynga) in particular, as well as newspapers looking to charge for content.
On 2nd October PayPal announced that XBox Live Marketplace is now accepting PayPal, and Blackberry maker RIM already allows software applications to be bought using PayPal. Sun Microsystems is already a partner, as is Microsoft.
PayPal is holding its next developer conference on 3rd November. Expect a flurry of commercial partner deals and some interesting new online payment applications.
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