Google Registers GoogleCheckout.com: an Answer to Yahoo + eBay?
Garett Rogers asserts that Google bought "GoogleCheckout.com" through domain buying proxy DNStinations. (Update - no he didn't actually. He asserted that they bought googlecheckout.net/org/info. Had I read Garett Rogers more closely I would not have written the title I did for this post. Forgive my fumblings.)

Is this more of a PayPal thing or a shopping cart add-on that will sync with Google Analytics?

Who f-ing knows! It's just a domain name for crying out loud!
(this cool-your-speculation-jets paragraph in honor of Danny Sullivan, who helped settle my mind about Google's Orion purchase :)

Either way it sounds to me - should it ever appear - like an initial answer to Yahoo + eBay. ...and a way to tie in more tightly with SMBs online.

Observe the timing:
date Yahoo + eBay went live: 2005-06-25 2006-06-25
date DNStinations registered domains for Google: 2005-06-26 2006-06-26

That settles it for me. As well as one can settle these sorts of things ;)

I will speculate too that it will have some strong, built in social elements that enable purchasers to rate... things. Or something. Could this be a part of Niniane Wang's social project? Ok, probably not. But maybe!

Mr. Rogers seems to somewhat conflate PayPal and an ecommerce site's actual shopping cart in Welcome to Google Checkout, that will be $3.14 that:

"I think it will be a shopping cart system to help websites accept payment for their items online. The money site owners make will be deposited into a holding account at Google — just like AdSense works.

Isn't this starting to sound a lot like PayPal? Who knows, they could even offer a Google branded Mastercard "debit card" like PayPal's ATM/Debit Card — after all, the domain googlemastercard.com is registered to Google too.

If this is indeed what they are planning, it would make sense for Google Checkout to tie into Google Analytics so website owners can easily track with certainty how their AdWords campaign is directly affecting sales — right through the checkout process.

Maybe one day Google will even provide an inventory management solution with an API so websites can have their inventory in Google Base and on their own website without double entry."

Despite fuzzy definitions (and who's frikkin perfect anyways), Rogers presents some compelling possible visions for how Google may increasingly tie into commerce on AND offline.

via blogoscoped

Update: I erroneously thought that Google had registered GoogleCheckout.COM. It in fact registered - through a third party - GoogleCheckout.ORG/INFO/NET.

All other facts are accurate as far as I can tell. And special thanks to the auction guild (TAD) in the comments for pointing out the fact that I thought it was still 2005.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |