Sorry if I am off base on this one, but not being able to cash out via PayPal would make me just want to use TipJoy instead. Even if I do ultimately donate my money to charity, I'd still like to have the option. The FAQ indicates that you can put money in via PayPal, but it appears the only cash out option is an Amazon Gift Card?
Still, good work on coming up with some sort of money maker for Twitter. They can't seem to do it :-).
We're in the same boat Tipjoy was when they started: there's a ton of legal stuff that goes with cashing out, and we've only been around a few weeks. It is absolutely on our list of priorities.
Twitpay.me was built at Atlanta Startup Weekend 2 just 1.5 weeks ago and launched officially today. Pay others via Twitter and fund those payments via PayPal. Pretty cool and very well designed (I'm biased - I helped in forming the idea but didn't work on the project).
Not sure why you got downvoted for that. It's true -- and we've already been approached by a charity about that possibility (that's separate from the option to donate upon cashout).
We're excited about this use case -- though like some others it's going to probably be more relevant once you can cash out with actual cash.
2. Not doing this themselves and leveraging their advantage of being able to take payments private (like direct messages). What's the play if they do that, sue for abuse of monopoly?
Also, twitter has zero security. Just one quick scenario: Set up a search for twitpay, bag a list of usernames, start bruteforcing passwords, dump to an account, and cash out...
Twitpay is focusing on micropayments in order to alleviate some of the risk in using a medium like Twitter. A user can only put or take a maximum of $50 in or out of the system on one given day. So while that attack is theoretically possible, it would not be very lucrative. You would also have to ensure that the accounts that you have brute forced are funded.
All the payments show up in the public twitter stream, so you know how much people theoretically have at any given time. The daily max is circumvented with sockpuppets.
It doesn't have to be lucrative for someone to try it, or for it to ruin the whole idea.
Other ways to ruin things: having trouble understanding the credit crisis? Create your own with twitpay. Just start twitpaying your friends and sockpuppet accounts in crazy, interlocking ways, but way underfund your accounts, then have everyone start making claims. Who gets paid!? I don't know! It's twitterific!
What's up with using text background highlights for adding an emphasis ? Someone needs to ease off on NLP. This is really annoying and most importantly it doesn't look good. Vary the text color if you are so inclined to tap the subconsciousness.
Still, good work on coming up with some sort of money maker for Twitter. They can't seem to do it :-).