Almost immediately following Twitter coming back from a planned downtime this afternoon, co-founder and current Chairman Jack Dorsey sent out a tweet letting his followers know that he was, “Getting ready to embark on something new and entirely different. Excited!” Dorsey is getting ready to launch his next startup, he’s confirmed to us. As the guy who actually invented Twitter, this is notable.
Though Dorsey declined to comment on what his new startup is right now, we hear from a source knowledgeable about the new company that it’s code-named Squirrel. Here’s what else we know so far: It’s a service that allows anyone with an iPhone to become a merchant. Just like the wireless credit card swipers you see at certain shops and restaurants, you can carry around your iPhone and take payments. Apparently, the idea is that this will allow any individual to take credit card payments on a mobile device, kind of like what PayPal does for the web.
Squirrel is both a physical device add-on to the iPhone as well as an iPhone app. Ingeniously, the device derives enough power from the physical swiping of the credit card to then read the card, so it requires no external power from the iPhone or anywhere else. The physical device apparently looks something like an acorn, thus the code name Squirrel.
But Dorsey is not leaving Twitter. He told me just now, “I’ll never leave Twitter, it’s my life’s work and baby and I’ll always be a major part of the endeavor, strategically and operationally. But, I do have some other ideas I’m pursuing and yes, we’re going to launch soon.”
Twitter was Dorsey’s idea when he was an engineer at the company Odeo, a podcasting company which current Twitter CEO Evan Williams ran at the time. Odeo ran Twitter as a side project for a while, before realizing that it had more potential than Odeo itself did. Twitter became the company, and Dorsey became the CEO. But there was always some question as to whether or not that role was a good fit for Dorsey, and so a few months ago, Williams and he swapped roles, with Dorsey taking the role of Chairman.
I’m very curious how well the new venture works out. The iphone has basically taken over (90% of my friends have them, even though none of us like the call quality).
And it might make it more convenient to take payments…however, I have this weird thought that the most important users of this would be the “encounters” section of craigslist…? Or am I off my rocker & people other than escorts need it?
I think I have an idea of what is up…
http://www.wannadevelop.com
“As the guy who actually invented Twitter, this is notable.”
Whoah. Somebody help me and pull MG’s head out of Twitter’s ass.
I’ll help you pull your own head out of your ass. This here is what we call a scoop.
nice to see no grass growing under his feet.
i dont see alot of people swiping cards mobile to pay for things. anyone with a ipone a merchant?
so what. people are less likely to trust a mobile phone swiper to charge a card. brick and mortar consumers prefer. whos gonna carry that adapter everywhere the go. that is completely opposite of ipone slim design. paypal with come out with a app that settles all the adapter nonsense.
better to just hand your ipone over to the payee he punches numbers in private. hands you back the pone with a confirmation receipt as aknowleged.
InventorLocator.com – simple science
After seeing his previous experience with coding for security, I believe him incapable of preventing pregnancy with a nuclear condor.
This is only a scoop with a ranch dip.
condom
Rare birds are an interessting idea too. Sheesh.
Wow, someone is bitter, jealous, and not just a little bit delusional…
Dorsey’s near-future tweet: TechCrunch blogger MG joining as “Market Expansion Exec. ”
Can anyone prescribe an antidote to MG obsession for Twitter. God, even a month ago, we had a great blogger who discussed technology and other stuff. Now, we have a CTB (Compulsive Twitter Obsessed) writer.
As a 30yr veteran of Direct Sales,Consulting,RE Sales,Hot Dog Sales NY Style Cart,Stock and Option Trader,Trading Instructor(FREE)-Brother in 20yo Lawn Care Co. No Billing for many Transactions, Charitable Fund Raising(I have a Public Foundation at National Heritage Foundation), Garage Sales,etc–I see 1,000’s of Real World Transactions
taco truck vendors, guys on the freeway selling oranges, flowers, ets.. , 3 card monty dealers, people that sell folex’s on the inside of there jacket.. do I need to continue all the useful ways this could be used.
yeah great idea, giving your credit card info to shady people. You have no idea whether or not the iPhone you’ll be using is actually hooked up to process credit cards
I bet his Twitter name is
@common_squirrel because those tweets are DEEP
There may be several someones out there that wish to run their company totally mobile, and this would be for them as well.
“Need to find someplace to spend your money? There’s an app for that!”
people who might want to accept cards while mobile: vendors at crafts fairs or flea markets; people who work in your home like plumbers, lawn service; drivers making deliveries to smaller stores e.g. the potato chip guy; any delivery people to your door like pizza or dry cleaning; the soccer team coordinator taking next season’s registration fee at the last game – just a few examples
So in talking to him, HE didn’t tell you what he was doing, a strategically placed ’source’ did. Who did he tell you to call in order to tell you what HE was doing? lol.
On the idea – sounds like a sound one… if you trust the person you’re doing business with and know what the heck a Squirrel is.
oh, and this would be great for door to door salesmen, fairground/flea market shops, and conventioneers.
Isnt there an app that does this? I’ve seen one on the iphone commercials that lets you take credit card numbers.
Sounds pretty interesting. Apple doesn’t allow third party transactions in apps, I wonder if they’ll try to prevent it from happening with external hardware too
There’s obviously some specific details around what type of third party transactions are allowed. PayPal has an approved app to send money, and as another commenter noted, there is already a cc-terminal app. All the same, good show for @jack. Squirrel actually should generate some revenue within the first few weeks of availability. Just sayin’.
this is so damned awesome.
A wise man said: you’re only as good as your last show.
There’s no such thing as the golden twitter touch (yet) so let’s not get ahead of things.
Are you saying the second act is never as good as the first? If so, who the hell was the ‘wise man’?
Evan Williams ‘last show’ was Odeo. Look what happened next…;)
Don’t forget about Blogger.
Last Show=Gong Show
I’m just saying that this guy gets credited for Twitter, not his new idea.
Yes! thank you, Dorsey, for this… thing. Someday somewhere I’ll be pushing a mobile hot dog cart and will surely thank you.
Don’t forget your trusty streetTweeter to waste the enemies who fight you for a piece of the action…
hmm, people in retail tend to carry PPC devices and Symbol ones too, and what about netbooks? It won’t take long before merchants at roadshows and events will be using netbooks, they already use laptops and credit card machines, what would make them switch? I hardly think this is awesome, more like a novelty
what exactly do you think is awesome about it Michael?
Cool idea..but…..
jack dorsey > biz stone
jack dorsey > biz stone > Squirrels
lol
Didnt I already see this app on a iphone commercial?
yep:
http://www.yout...ebtf3u58I#t=30s
I’ve seen a commercial on TV for an app very much like what is described here (minus a physical device add-on)
I’ve seen the same commercial. Wonder if that really is what the new venture is. If so, I can’t help but ask the question …will it be PCI Compliant?
It’s pretty easy to be PCI compliant when you’re handing data to a gateway.. encrypt the info to be transferred with an approved technology, don’t store the CVV2 code, and keep cardholder data protected against intruders. It’s pretty sad if they can’t manage that much.
Yeah its call Innerfence
http://www.innerfence.com/
iPhone OS 3.0 does allow support for 3rd party accessories. Remember the Glucose Meter? I guess you could connect a card scanner to read the card details into the app. Splendid idea! Let’s see how it gets execured.
Last paragraph, do you mean: “…so it requires [no] external power…” ? It reads like that’s what you meant to say, but as is it’s a little vague. Cheers!
yep exactly, thanks fixed.
Let’s hope he brings back Blaine Cook into the mix! We miss that guy #wheresblaine on twitter
sounds like a great app for credit card scams
This will be a boon for hookers.
And did I get this right that Jack called MG, “baby?”
ha. one could read it that way.
that’s true actually. killer app for prostitution.
I think you just solved the economic crisis.
cash is definitely king for that type of transaction…’Courtesy of Divine Brown Ltd’ may not look too good on the credit card statement!
“Squirrel is both a physical device add-on to the iPhone as well as an iPhone app. Ingeniously, the device derives enough power from the physical swiping of the credit card to then read the card, so it requires no external power from the iPhone or anywhere else. The physical device apparently looks something like an acorn, thus the code name Squirrel.”
iPhones, how popular they may be, are not a common phone. Add the hardware requirements to the low market penetration and I give them a deadpool’s head up.
I have the perfect solution, however. We’ll share that with you in the end of the year.
Seriously, each reply of yours on this post has been wrong. Please give up now.
Please elaborate when you insult me.
Your grammar is wanting, your thought is incomplete, and your weak attempts to generate buzz for some mysterious thing you are doing is just pathetic.
Please, they are in stealth so nobody even knows what’s really going on.
But I understand why you are this way… Must be hard being a nobody. Generally, these people try really hard in these forums to insult somebodies.
Melvin, it’s called the ‘Hall effect’(?)
Am I only the one not even close to being impressed?
There’s dozens of different credit-card accepting services out there on every type of device – Intuit just launched one recently for iPhone. Companies have been doing this for YEARS. And oh by the way, these services work on the other 260 Million cell phones unlike this one.
While I have a ton of respeck for twitter we need to learn alot more before people start pissing their pants.
Yeah the idea of accepting CCs via iPhone is not all that impressive.
But I don’t really think we know the supposed-impressive part of this start-up. It’s still in stealth.
“Dorsey is getting ready to launch his next startup, he’s confirmed to us. As the guy who actually invented Twitter, this is notable.”
Lighting rarely strikes more than once. So what’s notable for me is the fact that he’s perusing a side venture at the same time he’s deeply enmeshed within Twitter. Kudos. (Then again, maybe we’d have all the things we want like persistent, integrated link shortening and images if he bears down without double dipping.
)
I’ve seen lightening strike more than once for talented technologists (usually developer-types more than the MBAs). However, I’ve never (personally) seen a start-up succeed where the founders/top execs weren’t 100% focused, at least once the company was nearing launch. You’ve got to eat, drink, and breathe it.
I wish him the best and hope he’s the exception.
MG said…
As the guy who actually invented Twitter
There was nothing called invention in Twitter. I would rephrase it as something like, …the guy who actually developed Twitter. The use of the term invention amounts to the proliferating of worshiping and hyping of Twitter. Well done to Jack Dorsey for developing the Twitter app, but he can’t be categorized as an inventor in the same par as inventors as Thomas Edison and the likes.
MG, I think you embarrassed the man himself (Jack Dorsey) if he is reading this blog post.
good explanation fisi. i was wondering about that inventor statement. could twitter be classified as inevitable evolution?
i am an inventor because it derives from the latin verb “invent” meaning “to find.” finding things is the core of my startup. location, location, location.
SellLocator.com – put a price
@Falafulu Fisi
FINALLY, someone else has seen through the totally bias way that techcrunch promotes this extreamly LOW LOW tech site twitter. As you correctly stated there has been no real inventive step here it is simply a site linked to a database with SMS capabilities. BIG DEAL. Like i mentioned yesterday, there are a multitude of companies out there really making huge break throughs in areas of computer science (AI,cognative processing,etc) But as twitter are probably PAYING tech crunch for coverage it does not surprise me that these other companies do not get any coverage. Ok… so take a garbage easily replicable site throw 55 million at it and bias promotion and you’ve got Twitter; Excuse me if I remain disenchanted!!
These day’s not much is actually invented from scratch. Almost everything is evolutionary instead of revolutionary, even advances in the fields you called out.
And while Twitter developers may not have actually invented much in the traditional sense of the word, they packaged technologies and design in a way that, for whatever intangible reason, has resulted in a hugely popular site. That in and of itself is inventive.
I agree they shouldn’t be held up as examples of our generations greatest technologists, but the accomplishments shouldn’t be under appreciated either.
What ever happened to Cuil?
http://www.tech...ic_edited-1.png
http://www.flic...ar9/2714819560/
Wonder how Twitter investors will feel about him moon-lighting. Over $50m in VC and they still haven’t brought in any meaningful revenue….now the founder is going to focus on something else?
Dorsey is the chairman and Evan Williams is the CEO. I’m assuming that Dorsey is not involved in the day to day operations like that. There had to be reason Williams took the reigns from Dorsey.
I bet that this has more to do with monetizing twitter. Perhaps a killer app for twitter micro payments?
Didn’t anyone else notice the irony in going from one money-less venture to one that’s sole job is to process financial transactions?
I nor anyone I know has any pressing need to accept credit cards, but gosh if only it were possible to do the reverse, and actually *pay* for things with our mag-stripe-acorn-equipped iphones… that would be cool.
don’t get why credit card processing is a big deal; why can’t you just type in the numbers through the phone and hit https?
why would someone want this? except for maybe a hooker; but they already take your credit card information before you meet them.
LOL, tell us all about it lemon
Is there a payment system that works like bumptechnologies.com? That would be a cool app. Bump to transfer funds.
Can’t wait to find out what will be said after the next planned downtime on Monday….stay tuned
First Data in on the action? No more annoying, disparate card readers “everywhere you go” like VISA?
So funny the comment about this being a killer app for prostitutes! I was thinking the exact same thing – doh!!
I thought this app already exists? It’s always on the iPhone TV spots…
Although there’s already “an app for that”, there’s plenty of room for more (that either do it better, differently, or target a different market segment).
There are already tons of game apps, news apps and just about every other type of app (yes, including multiple “fart apps”).
The existing “Credit Card Terminal” app is here:
http://itunes.a...137919&mt=8
Good luck Jack!
I love the name……….Squirrel!!! Maybe since you help setup Twitter you could help me with one problem I cannot fix. I now have a spam problem that my antivirus will not catch, so what do I do?? I turned on my pc one day, and got on Twitter, and I was being spammed with constant messages and now I it has taken over and I can never stay on my home page of Twitter without being interrupted. What do I do?? Thanks and Good Luck with your new project, I know that you do not need it and I will be watching it’s progress in the news. Terri.
Sounds already cool. Expecting the outcome!
If I remember correctly, when PayPal started it was supposed to be a mobile to mobile payment service, and they stopped that because they realized that people prefer transacting with cash. The vast majority of transactions that people have with colleagues and friends are small cash transactions.
So what sorts of transactions do iPhone users (who are primarily consumers) undertake where a credit card is a preferred means of accepting funds? Certainly not micropayments…used car sales? I can’t really come up with a situation where I’d rather have a credit card than just cash and the car thing is the only situation I can think of where I’d prefer paying by card instead of carrying thousands of dollars in cash.
Sorry if this is painfully obvious, but where would a typical consumer transacting with another consumer really prefer giving/receiving a credit card over cash? How is this different than what the original PayPal team veered away from?
1. Private party car sales
2. Hookers
3. Used electronics
4. ?
i agree. i’d like to see the advantages over https://www.paypal.com/mobile .
And, so I wonder, first off, do we think that he’ll put the same amount of attention into the back end of this Squirrel business as he caused (partially caused?) to have put into Twitter’s infrastructure? And if so, would you really trust your money to it?
After watching DMs be”misdelivered” tweets fail to arrive, inability to access the site, API connectivity problems, and a general disregard for the user community, I don’t see how trusting that mentality with MONEY actually makes any sense.
Am I impressed? No. Is the idea cool? Oh Yeah.
I hope someone beats Squirrel to the nuts.
Nice so I stand behind the counter and when the customer is not looking I swipe his card once for the purchase and twice with my I-phone in the other hand then I delay purchase router thru netherland and back into my African bank account.
Just a thought….
wow, epic idea.
best of luck
I was getting ready to get impressed, thinking he’d come up with a novel way to accept transactions *without* requiring card swipes, addressing the security problems with giving anyone with an iPhone access to sensitive track data.
Does he have any idea what the requirements are for devices like this? I used to work for a little company called Hypercom, good luck to him getting his device certified and the schemes (Visa/MC) to accept transactions from such an origin.
Better would be a way for the user to authorize transactions requested from another iPhone, on *their phone*, with no sensitive data transiting between merchant and customer.
Yawn.
Does no one remember that PayPal launched as Confinity on the Palm Pilot and the original idea was to let people pay each other using mobile devices?
It may have failed because it turns out, there’s not a big market for electronic peer-to-peer payments on mobile devices. Or, it may have failed because it used exotic digital cash crypto instead of just using credit card transactions. Who knows, in any case, it merged with X.com and become PayPal.
The Web 2.0 era has a short memory.
Not new or innovative in the least. Either this story is completely off base or someone is smoking something. Yawn, fanboys.., yawn.
where are twitter guys?
LOL I just bought http://payquirrel.com just incase…
make that http://paysquirrel.com LMAO
Nuts
sounds like iTouch2Pay.
Turns your iphone into a merchat payment system.
http://www.itouch2pay.com
I wonder how much Arrington and Co are billing Jack Dorsey to print this garbage.
I know, Dorsey will pay Oprah a couple mill and stock incentives again for her to mention this one on her show
I wonder that too. see my earlier reply above regarding the “technical” merits of twitter or lack there of.
nah it would be more epic if….
- you could load a cc, debit cards, multiple checking/savings accounts paypal accounts, gift cards/coupons all on one card
-aggregate all spending/transactions into digital receipts which would sync up automatically to any budgeting program
- which you can use to lock it into safe spending so it will not give you money you dont have or let you buy something if your already over your suggested budget
-oh yea and the card itself has a password that must be entered before it can be used or before any financial information can be accessed
- it can be remotely wiped and located via RFID or cellular tower triangulation
to take it to the next step:
-you can turn this smart card into a digital ID system
-load your drivers license
-auto/home/health insurance,
-ss# and birth certificates
-optional lifelock insurance
and then you can opt into putting your health records on it so in an emergency your health records can be accessed with a simple swipe
or opt into smart consumer mode which basically removes anonymity of all consumer purchases so the corporations could aggregate this information to better serve you and make more accurate recommendations
and why not while we are at it lets turn it into a RFID chip and implant it under the skin that way you can’t ever lose it
its just a win-win….
the world will be safer place because the police will be able to access this chip/ID remotely with probable cause, if you attempt to flee assuming you where a suspect in some random case law enforcement could have the authority to turn off the financial and ID functionality chip/ID with a warrant of some sort so you cant buy anything or go anywhere and then they can use RFID to track you once they are within range
psssh as if…….
“the world will be safer place because the police will be able to access this chip/ID remotely with probable cause”
Right, like the Feds need probable cause anymore. And I don’t think world safety is the goal behind govt. spying.
Not the most innovative product since there are already readers for laptops, but bringing credit card readers to the iphone with 3.0 seems like the logical next step. It would be surprising if other apps didn’t respond with their own product since there is a need for cheap payment processing without carrying around a clunky device.
Actually, as described this is a decent idea. There are many merchants who need to accept payments outside of a traditional workplace. The only good option is to buy a card swipe machine that is wireless. Those are $500+ and you also need to have a separate wireless data plan.
We use one of the iPhone apps for a small biz we run and it solved the problem above very well. It’s great. BUT, when you type in the credit card number as opposed to swiping (which you can’t currently do with an iPhone) the processing fees are higher. That is because the credit card processors treat the iPhone account like web based processing which has higher risk of cc fraud. So swiping the card will definitely save money.
Jack will grab all the nuts on the payments tree. His service will all card present transactions that clear at 0.5% less than card not present/Internet transactions. This makes it a winner on price for many merchants.
Also, consumers could get Squirrel accounts to use as wallets and pay merchants on a closed loop basis like Paypal does it. Jack will keep ALL the transaction revenue.
Quite twitterific.
Hey, Your blog is too good. Makes me visit it again and again.
Cheers,
Sandy
Maybe not the same, but iSwipe is the most popular credit card terminal on the App Store right now:
http://www.appn...njas.com/iswipe
Not true.
The one from the commercial (http://innerfence.com) is #34 top paid app in Business. iSwipe is only #87.
Another of those brilliant yet simple “why didn’t I think of that” ideas. Keep in mind that just a small slice of the overall transaction base will be worth a fortune for the folks holding Squirrel stock and give them a foothold in the payment space.
I’ll probably get hang one on my belt for those unexpected moments…when a friend asks to hold a few hundred dollars until payday…when I’m at the poker table against a rich guy who’s out of cash…when a hot woman wants to spend some time with me but is out of cash…like I said…the unexpected.
http://www.twit...m@dlevinethinks
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I thought this was a “I overheard it in the toilets” type of information? If so, I doubt it’s legit.
This will never be about WHAT is being done but about HOW it’s being done.
It doesn’t matter if it’s not some major breakthrough invention what matters is how it works.
Maybe it works maybe it wont’ so what at least they are doing something.
Wow, web 2.0 is so amazing to me. You don’t need a good idea, you don’t need any innovation, and you don’t need to do anything that hasn’t been done a million times before. You just have to know how to generate the proper amount of buzz in the right blogs, and you are golden. I have never seen a more credulous group of people in my life. It is like the W. C. Fields economy.
“Hey what if we made a handheld credit card processing system?”
“You mean like the ones that have been out for over a decade for Palm and Windows Mobile?”
“No, it’s totally different, because we will put the words Twitter and iPhone on it!”
“Brilliant! That is the most revolutionary idea ever! You are like 10,000x smarter than DaVinci!”
hahaha couldnt agree more
Thats right on!! ha ha!!
DING DING DING!