Google Checkout finally arrives in a bid to streamline online transactions and make the process of purchasing online simpler and easier. ‘Checkout’ has been discussed across the blogosphere for quite a few months and it was only a matter of time before Google announced their competition for PayPal. However, Google are going to face stiff competition from eBay, owners of PayPal, who are not going to give up without a big, and probably messy, fight. Google’s audience was always a little bit ‘geeky’ before moving mainstream with the help of Carol Vorderman, so their Checkout service will probably follow the same path – a highly web savvy audience will test the service, before average ‘Joe Public‘ starts using it.
Google has been churning out new online services at a rate of over two a month for the last year, which is admirable, but ultimately leads onto a undesirable deviation from their core search engine business – something that has stagnated considerably during the same period.