Almost one month into its life, and the development community is beginning to get to grips with Google's in-app billing service for Android Market.
One studio in particular believes there's currently plenty of room for improvement, though just a few steps could be enough to give the purchase platform some real momentum.
The main suggestion? Compensate studios who attract new customers to Google Checkout by employing in-app purchases in their titles.
Incentivisation options
That's one of three tips delivered by Bionic Panda Games co-founder Charles Hudson.
After employing Android Market's in-app billing in the studio's title Aqua Pets, Hudson claims it's become clear that there are key areas where Google is currently going wrong.
Namely, the firm's efforts to encourage developers to utilise its billing service in the first place.
"One way in which Google could make in-app billing more attractive to developers would be to pay developers who enrol net-new Google Checkout customers," says Hudson.
"A small bounty of $5 to 10 per activated account would be interesting for most developers and would give the community a stronger incentive to push it more aggressively to users.
"A bounty of that size would be inline with what other payment options, namely PayPal, have paid historically to activate new users."
Forced take-up
Hudson also believes Google should block other in-app purchase set ups on Android Market, forcing studios to use its first party solution moving forward.
"I do think that having end-users consistently see the Google Checkout experience across applications will make it feel more familiar and help hopefully grow the base of payment-enabled users," he adds.
"Having a standardised, simple, consistent way to checkout and buy things in apps that feels familiar to all users would be a net benefit for the platform."
Money matters
But perhaps the biggest move would be for Google to wave all fees for the rest of the year.
"One objection that developers have to rolling out Google in-app billing is the 30 percent commission that Google is charging," says Hudson, adding that charges on Apple's App Store make sense because it has "200 million credit cards on file already".
"There's a simple solution to that - just remove it for the remainder of 2011," he adds.
"Yes, it will cost Google money. But zero-cost transaction processing is attractive to every developer out there and would likely spur some of the folks sitting on the fence to integrate in-app billing into their apps and encourage users to use it.
"They can reinstate fees in 2012 with a larger base of installed users and a happier set of developers whove seen the benefits of using in-app billing in their own applications."
[source: Inside Mobile Apps]
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With a fine eye for detail, Keith Andrew is fuelled by strong coffee, Kylie Minogue and the shapely curve of a san serif font.
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