Zunguz.com - Social Banking - Bitcoin Competitor?

[elux]

Instantly send money to, or pay the bills of, your trusted contacts on any social platform, using any payment method.

A platform that connects the banking world with the social graph. By placing people at the center you can:

• Transfer Money: Instantly send money from your bank account to any of your friends banks account, directly within Facebook.
• Purchase: A one click  enabling you to purchase from any merchants website or Facebook fan page with your predetermined and preferred payment method.
• Share: Choose to share the experience of what you purchased with your trusted friends and earn referral bonuses.

I see more reason to worry about Zunguz than MintChip. Thoughts?

[Stephen Gornick]

After a successful proof of concept and closed beta, we opened up with a soft launch to South African users. USA, Mexico and India are now being launched and end point of presence for withdrawals will be available in these regions shortly.

  (emphasis mine)

And

There has been “a flood of interest coming from Australia, Canada, China, Nigeria and USA,” says Sussman.

 - http://zunguz.com/uncategorized/zunguz-wants-to-turn-facebook-into-a-bank-2

[istar]

Instantly send money to, or pay the bills of, your trusted contacts on any social platform, using any payment method.

A platform that connects the banking world with the social graph. By placing people at the center you can:

• Transfer Money: Instantly send money from your bank account to any of your friends banks account, directly within Facebook.
• Purchase: A one click  enabling you to purchase from any merchants website or Facebook fan page with your predetermined and preferred payment method.
• Share: Choose to share the experience of what you purchased with your trusted friends and earn referral bonuses.

I see more reason to worry about Zunguz than MintChip. Thoughts?

That will catch on, but the world still needs an independet currency and you still don´t own that money, there will be no privacy with it.



 

[kangasbros]

I see more reason to worry about Zunguz than MintChip. Thoughts?

Why to worry, competition is good and alternatives are good.

[jago25_98]

more privacy than btc for the non technical and vast majority of ignorant users

bust banks will sort the men from the boys

[elux]

Why to worry, competition is good and alternatives are good.

Zunguz would extend the power, and grow the profits of Facebook, Visa, Mastercard, Paypal and banks.
This gives them an incentive to lock people in to this service, and lock out competing services that would do the opposite.

What I'm worried about is abuse of market power to put in place barriers to entry.

[Bitcoin Oz]

Yuck

[mccorvic]

Anything with the word "Social" in it's title is craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap.

[unclescrooge]

It's not an alt currency, as such, no more a competitor to bitcoin than paypal

[Eli]

I see more reason to worry about Zunguz than MintChip. Thoughts?

Meh. Aren't there like dozens of these services? why is this so special?

And it's not a competitor to bitcoin because it's still relies on centralized money. The only thing that I'll consider a competitor to Bitcoin is something that has Bitcoin at it's heart (decentralized, democratic, crypto) but provides something that Bitcoin cannot.

[acoindr]

It's not a competitor to Bitcoin because it's not a currency. All it does is enhance the usability of existing fiat currency.

Bitcoin improves (at least) two distinct problems:

1. Inflation - Bitcoin eliminates this purchasing power robbing phenomenon virtually all fiat currency is destined to experience

2. Maximum Transaction Flexibility - Bitcoin allows people to issue payments themselves without a middleman or gatekeeper. This significantly opens up the range of who they can pay, when, how, how much, and at what cost.

Zunguz.com is advancing the existing paradigm of fiat currency, which unfortunately is now in its death throes. It's a good idea and the next logical step in money transfer, but it's betting on the wrong horse.

It's not a Bitcoin competitor at all, but it is a certain PayPal killer.