Now You Can Send Money By Gmail
Along with a flurry of other announcements made on Wednesday at Google I/O, Google's annual developers' conference, the company announced that it's integrating Google Wallet with Gmail, meaning Gmail account holders will soon be able to send money via email.
The amazing thing about this is how easy it is. As you can see in the YouTube video below, all you do is hit a "$" symbol to attach money to an email -- just like you would attach any other file.
Google Product Manager Travis Green wrote in a blog post that this feature will be rolled out "over the coming months to all U.S. Gmail users over 18 years old." You can also get early access if a friend -- perhaps who works at Google -- already has the feature and sends money to you.
This could pose a threat to e-commerce startups like Venmo, which allows you to send someone payments through an app for iPhones or Android phones. "Holy startup killer," said Artur Adib, a senior engineer at
Twitter.
Jeff Peters, a new media and marketing consultant, wrote in a tweet about the news, "This could be big...if (when) people trust it."
Tech executive Ray Nolan went even further, declaring, "eCommerce just changed."
Watch the Video below:
