This is supposedly the new competition to PayPal. There’s a story about the service in USA today. Signing up does require your social security number. The $25 bonus shows up in your account immediately. You can get $10 for each friend you personally refer via e-mail.
The $25 immediately showed up in my account and I added one of my un-used ING Direct accounts as a funding source.
So far the only funding sources available are bank accounts so don’t expect this to replace PayPal anytime soon with most people paying via credit card.
Revolution Money is going under. They have run out of money. The Board of Directors and Executive Management are to blame. The Board tried to drive accounts with a huge marketing spend. This is typical of AOL where the business model was to drive accounts and not take care of the customer.
One problem was they didn’t take care of the customer or look for long-term value and the user interface required an overhaul or temporary band-aids. None of which were done. The online interface was actually an AOL-esque application and not a web-based interface.
Online issues were identified early yet there was no course correction. The senior management and directors did not have experience with an immature online business that needed to take care of the customer. Directors and VPs were hired who had little or no online experience. Several VPs was upset that they did not have a secretary to manage their schedule.
While the business model was solid, the executive management did not have the expertise to run an integrated online and direct marketing campaign. While their response will be – failure was caused by an economic downturn, this is far from the truth. For example, the executives gold-plated the IT operation, installed it and then saw funds were low and fired all the contractors who helped install this. Worse, the Executives purchased the new Mac Air Notebooks when their PC laptops were just fine. Proven web strategies were ignored in favor of driving accounts. Priorities were ever shifting and became a running joke amongst the staff.
This failure will be a great study for B-Schools. Also, the lessons of the Internet business in the late nineties and 2000 were ignored. For example, how to burn through 80 million dollars.