Another important development has occurred in the ongoing battle of the leading social media platforms as microblogging giant, Twitter have teamed up with S-Money, a division of the second largest French banking group, Groupe BPCE to offer Tweetable money. The new service will allow account holders to make payments to other account holders, businesses and charities via the mobile application.
Controversy
While the service is seen as a important step forward for Twitter and a useful service for account holders, a certain level of controversy has surrounded the development of Tweetable money. The controversy surrounding this new innovation from Twitter refers to the very public nature of these new transactions. With all tweets making payments appearing on what is a very public platform, issues have of course been raised regarding fears of customer privacy, with financial information being such a delicate subject.
However, charities have expressed support for Tweetable money, due to the benefits of visibility that will be granted through this service. Gaelle Jones, head of corporate and institutional donors at Action Contre la Faim (Action Against Hunger), a French charity that fights malnutrition worldwide, stated: “It’s through this visibility on social networks that we can mobilize more donors and supporters.”
How Does It Work?
As a mechanical process, Tweetable money is remarkably simple, reflective of the original concept behind the functionality. Making an S-Money payment over Twitter requires sender and recipient to link their Twitter usernames to their S-Money accounts, whilst the sender is required to download the app on their phone. Following the initial set up, it is as simple as tweeting @SmoneyFR with the hashtag #envoyer (send), followed by the amount of euros and the Twitter username of the recipient.
Twitter had already launched its own “buy” button last month, allowing people to make purchases via a tweet which opened up a number of e-commerce possibilities for the social platform. Twitter stated that many conversations on Twitter are transactional in nature, so this new service is a natural evolutionary step.
Tweetable money is reflective of how social media has become a huge part of lives and will continue to develop and evolve the way in which we live our lives on a daily basis.