Facebook Will Bring Credits To Mobile Browsers. Over a month ago, we first reported on Project Spartan, Facebook’s secret plan to bring applications to the mobile web via HTML5.
Facebook is working with teams of third-party developers that they call their “Spartans” and hope to unveil the project later this summer. As we noted, the key to all of this is really Credits. Right now, Facebook has no way to make money on any of the mobile platforms out there. Facebook Credits Will Work With iTunes Applications. It what appears to be an unofficial agreement, Facebook and Apple will honor each other’s currency for games running on their platform as long as the cost of virtual goods is the same on both platforms. It’s a sort of unofficial pact mentioned by Ubisoft’s VP of Digital Publishing to Tricia Duryee of AllThingsD. Why’s this a big deal? As Duryee cleverly describes the existing state of things for game players, “it’s the equivalent of traveling in Europe before the Euro.” Does Facebook hold the future of mobile payments in its hands? Facebook Credits, The Future of Mobile & Online Purchases.
As consumers wait, and analysts guess who will lead us into a world of virtual wallets and mobile payments, it may be the company that currently helps us post to our friends wall, tag them in photos and update our status.
With over 600 million users, Facebook and their currency platform ‘Credits’ is poised to be the future of how we pay for both virtual and physical goods. Introduced in May of 2009, Facebook Credits was originally designed as a virtual currency to allow people to make purchases within games and non-gaming applications with the Facebook platform.
Much like Apple with iTunes, Facebook takes a 30% cut on every dollar spent through their Credits platform. Today users can buy Credits with 15 currencies, including U.S. dollars, Euros, the British Pound and the Venezuelan Bolivar.