Twitter Founder Unveils Square Project

Twitter founder Jack Dorsey is all about business. His latest brainchild, the Square, the new mobile-payments company, has just launched in beta and is now accepting email requests for preliminary accounts.

The company has put up a website to explain the idea behind Square.

The Square hardware add-on is a tiny, inexpensive plastic card reader that you plug into the headphone jack of a compatible device (right now it’s just the iPhone and but it’s targeting BlackBerry and Androids next) and transfers the credit card’s swipe data to the app. Once plugged in, it processes your credit card payments, geotags an establishment’s (from which you made a purchase) location on a map, and then emails you a receipt.

The idea to create Square came when now-executives heard about an artist whose sales were hampered by the fact that he cannot accept credit card payments. According to the website, Even though a majority of payments has moved to plastic cards, accepting payments from cards is still difficult, requiring long applications, expensive hardware, and an overly complex experience."

The website has failed to note however, that loyalty and donations are shown as well. Square can track down the number of purchases you’ve made at a given establishment for discounts and promos. Square also donates a cent of each transaction to the merchant’s nonprofit organization of choice.

It is not clear though whether they’ll make transactions free (considering the low production costs.

According to their website, Square has offices in San Francisco, New York, and St. Louis and currently employs 11 people.

Source: CNET

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