PayPal X Platform
- Highlights of June @PayPalX writing and payments news http://bit.ly/r4ShOX (plus links to the last year's worth of content) #
- Vote for your favorite @PayPalX Developer Challenge for Android app http://bit.ly/n11ncU #
Big data
- How eBay uses #Hadoop http://bit.ly/o8KW6g via @ptwobrussell on the @PayPalX DevZone blog #
APIs and development
- An interesting look at Twitter's architecture and why they are shifting more code to the JVM http://bit.ly/p1pBTa #
Personal things
- We either just had a Rockets Over Rhema http://t.co/bUxeYKV flyover, or it's the beginning of WWIII. Man those F16s are loud! #
- Ten amazing Space Shuttle photos http://bit.ly/qkbuyZ (I still find it hard to believe that the last Shuttle launch ever is this Friday!) #
- I didn't realize one should be drinking *3-5 cups* of tea per day to get the maximum benefit http://bit.ly/p2POYv (need to up my game a bit) #
Running
- Registered for the Bedlam Run 10k http://bit.ly/knsUKx to blow the doors off some Cowboys! Boomer Sooner!!! #
- My training last week: 2 workouts for 7.33 mi and 924 calories burned http://bit.ly/mTiWGu #
- Ran 5.22 miles in 1 hour and 35 sec and felt alright. Trail + road run, plus a short cooldown walk at the end. Blaz… http://bit.ly/nFhaub #
PayPal’s revised deadline for entries in the PayPal X Developer Challenge for Android has come and gone. The entries are now ready for your review, and more importantly for your People’s Choice Award vote.
As Naveed Anwar noted on the PayPal Blog:
We’re calling on you, our incredibly talented and creative PayPal X developer community, to vote for the most innovative app that best leverages PayPal’s APIs on the Android platform.
Visit the Challenge web site to link to the voting page, or click here to go straight to the app review and voting interface. The voting page offers these simple instructions for you to follow as you watch two minute videos highlighting each entry, click links to learn more about any apps that interest you, and then cast your vote.
We have received hundreds of great entries and now it’s up to you to help decide who will receive the coveted People’s Choice Award. Vote now for the most innovative app that best leverages PayPal’s APIs on the Android platform.
Click here to read the complete post on the PayPal X Developer Network including the deadline to submit your vote.
The beginning of July 2011 marks the one year anniversary of my contributing to the PayPal X DevZone. Thank you for reading my writing along the way!
I hope you’ve had as much fun reading as I’ve had writing. I’ve certainly learned a lot from you. I really appreciate all the comments you’ve sent my way including your requests, suggestions, and feedback. I hope you’ll continue to ping me as we go, “early and often” as they say. Here’s to the coming year’s opportunities for all of us working together on the PayPal X Platform!
While I celebrate, perhaps you’d like to take a look back at some of the important and interesting PayPal and payments related developments from June? (Or for anytime throughout the last year via the month-by-month links near the bottom of the complete post on the PayPal X Developer Network.)
First up, PayPal published the first four parts of my article series on “Alternative Payment Systems”. In parts one through four I compared the PayPal X Platform and PayPal technologies to offerings from Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Dwolla. Watch for a fifth installment on Square and Intuit GoPayment to be followed by a final, sixth article summarizing and cross-comparing all of the payment systems discussed in the series.
My DevZone blog posts from June included:
- PayPal appears to have scheduled Mobile Checkout, the predecessor to Mobile Express Checkout (MEC), for end-of-life as of September 1st, 2011.
- LinkedIn added “Jobs” and “Companies” APIs to its set of developer offerings (more useful stuff for your social network programming toolkit).
- Doing Facebook development? Check out the unofficial Facebook Graph API Explorer as an alternative (or supplement) to Apigee’s Facebook console.
- The AT&T Code Scanner may be the best iPhone QR scanner available, and it also handles Data Matrix and UPC codes. Read my review here.
- What is X.commerce? Learn all about the merger of the PayPalX, eBay, and Magento developer communities here.
- PayPal X MEC increased Crutchfield’s mobile conversion 33.7%! Learn how you might get a similar bump.
- We’re seeing massive PayPal user and mobile payments growth (great opportunities for PayPal developers!).
- Would you like to read about Magento, Google App Inventor for Android development, the PayPal X Platform in local apps, or something else? Click here to read about and take a one question survey giving me your feedback on what I should write about next.
Click here to read the complete post on the PayPal X Developer Network including links to other developer related news and previous months’ review posts.
PayPal X Platform
- Part 3 of my current @PayPalX series http://bit.ly/jz8cOK susses out Google Checkout, In-App Payments, and Wallet http://bit.ly/mDpyhN #
- Part 4 of my alternative payments series http://bit.ly/jz8cOK compares Dwolla to @PayPalX http://bit.ly/kydrnN #
- My latest @PayPalX post: Massive @PayPal user and mobile payments growth http://bit.ly/mmhSym #
- Wired mag interview with @Square founder Jack Dorsey http://bit.ly/mBIa99 #
- "Going, going, gone: Who killed the Internet auction?" http://bit.ly/lO3vWz is premature in reporting its death, but worth reading anyway #
- Would you like to read about @Magento, @AppInv for Android development, @PayPalX in local apps, or something else? http://bit.ly/ina47e #
Big data
- From evaluation to your first production #Hadoop cluster http://oreil.ly/m5LdQs via @radar #
Wireless and mobility
- Firefox Home is very handy; get the #iPhone #app here http://bit.ly/iGbw1O or for #Android here http://bit.ly/mSYlDD #
- How the iPhone effect changed everything http://bit.ly/iePGoX especially smartphones, handset vendor fortunes, and mobile data usage #
APIs and development
- The PDF Toolkit (pdftk) http://bit.ly/j19NmB is pretty dang cool stuff if you have to munge and muck around with PDF files. Recommended! #
- "PDF Hacks" is a terribly useful book from the maker of pdftk; check it out in @safaribooks online at: http://bit.ly/lVBVb9 #
Personal things
- Thank you, Clive Thompson, for providing a name for that thing I do before I actually bang out words for a project! http://bit.ly/mJDEsQ (“prewriting”) #
- Writing nakeder than Orwell http://bit.ly/lsL42i by @thisissethsblog (excellent!) #
- Another @thisissethsblog gem: "How do you know when it's done?" http://bit.ly/lExlGW (I fight this too often) #
- I'm enjoying the Financing Options for Startups series http://bit.ly/jB6lp6 by @fredwilson (loved the customers post http://bit.ly/mUQthj ) #
- How to use Google Plus http://rww.to/lGw4Ci via @rww #
- How one newspaper rebooted its workflow with @GoogleDocs and @WordPress http://oreil.ly/jqZgyK via @radar #
- To do: Check out Hunting GPS Maps http://bit.ly/mizhnp before next western trip #
- I do *not* like the new @gmail http://bit.ly/jQuIVP especially the big, ugly, red Compose Mail button screaming at me from the upper left! #
Running
- Ran 3.19 miles in 33 mins and felt alright. Hot! http://bit.ly/lRGfyk #
- Ran 3.31 miles in 34 mins and felt great. Beautiful, cool morning before the rain arrived. http://bit.ly/mF2kfG #
- Ran 4.02 miles in 45 mins and felt great. Mile paces 8:02, 8:23, 8:42, 8:49, 8:15, 8:47, 7:40, 7:49, and 7:54. http://bit.ly/jlLsSq #
I’m currently proposing topics I’d like to write about for X.com and would appreciate your input on what you’d like to see covered in coming months.
Some of the topics I’d like to write about include:
- The Magento eCommerce platform – what it is, how merchants can start using it, and what opportunities there are for developers to interact with and even change the system to their liking
- Google’s App Inventor tool for Android development – how to build and deploy useful Android apps visually and efficiently
- PayPal Pain Points – a series looking at common troubles and problems encountered by PayPal X Platform developers, and how to address them or work around them
- PayPal in local apps – using the PayPal X Platform with Foursquare, SimpleGeo, Factual, and other location APIs
I’m also considering articles on getting started with the eBay APIs and PayPal X programming in Ruby.
Please fill out this one question survey to give me your feedback:
Click here to read the complete post on the PayPal X Developer Network including any comments left there by other readers.
PayPal has been on fire lately with impressive growth in their active user base and mobile payments processing.
This week PayPal confirmed that they’ve reached 100 million active users. That’s a lot of people and businesses capable of purchasing from merchants using the PayPal X Platform! And it comes on the heels of last week’s news that PayPal was doubling their mobile “Total Payments Volume” (TPV) prediction to $3 billion USD for calendar year 2011.
Some of the related predictions and statistics from the PayPal blog post announcing the mobile TPV revisions and related Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, and Mobile Commerce Daily articles:
- Forrester Research predicts mobile commerce will hit $6 billion in 2011 and approach $31 billion by 2016 with an annual compound growth rate of 39% during that period.
- PayPal’s mobile TPV grew from the neighborhood of $6 million USD per day in March to up to $10 million USD daily in June.
- PayPal currently has 8 million customers “regularly making purchases” on their mobile phones.
- PayPal grew 23% in the first quarter of 2011, accounting for $992 million USD, or almost 40%, of eBay’s revenue.
Click here to read the complete post on the PayPal X Developer Network including a discussion of what these stats mean to you as a merchant and/or developer.
Welcome to part four of my multi-part series comparing alternative payment systems to the PayPal X Platform and each other. Part one introduced Amazon’s Flexible Payments Service, part two discussed Facebook Credits, and part three focused on Google Checkout.
This time we’re going to examine the Dwolla platform (@dwolla) for sending and receiving cash. We’ll look at some of Dwolla’s claims for consumer and merchant advantages, then we’ll switch gears and look at Dwolla from a developer perspective. We’ll discuss the Dwolla APIs and what you can do with them. We will conclude with a look at how the Dwolla platform compares with the PayPal X Platform and solutions.
Introduction to Dwolla
The Dwolla homepage contains an introductory video that’s worth watching to get a feel for what they’re offering (I couldn’t find an embed option so you’ll need to click here and then play the video near the top of the page if you’d like to see it for yourself). The key claim in their description of their system is that Dwolla is “the online cash option”.
Dwolla claims to be comparable to cash in that they use bank transfers to fund payments, no credit cards required. They also aim to keep transaction costs low, avoiding potentially significant (and sometimes fluctuating) credit card fees. Their “Fees” page shows a “Cost to receive money” of $0.25 USD per transaction. There are no costs to open an account, send money, make withdrawals (automatic or manual), add a bank funding option to an account, or request payment with an invoice. We’ll dig deeper into the fees involved in a later series summary article, but suffice it to say they are relatively minimal.
Dwolla calls out several key features for consumers. Among these, the system allows the payee to:
- Send money to Twitter followers and Facebook friends
- Shop online with participating merchants (more on merchant advantages below)
- Buy goods and services at participating real world merchants, too
- Access Dwolla “core features” via iPhone and Android consumer apps
- Search transaction history by transaction size or date as well as participating parties
Dwolla provides an even lengthier list of merchant advantages, stating that merchants using their system can:
- Accept payments online with a free merchant account (twenty-five cents per transaction fee still applies)
- Integrate with existing shopping cart solutions via the Dwolla APIs (more on the APIs below)
- Accept payments at physical stores including the ability to monitor incoming payments using the Dwolla Merchant iOS app
- Automatically sweep funds sent to your Dwolla account into your bank account (maintain a zero Dwolla account balance at all times if you like)
- Setup a branded, Dwolla-hosted HUB page for the quickest possible time-to-accepting-payments
- Pay other businesses for less money than mailing a check (that $0.25 per transaction fee thing again)
This YouTube video highlights both the consumer and merchant Dwolla apps in both a location-based, real world purchase scenario and a second friend-to-friend money transfer example (click here if you are unable to access the embedded video directly below).
To sum up for consumers and merchants, Dwolla aims to make payments easier and cheaper while taking a cut of the transaction costs for themselves. PayPal and others are doing similar things. So far, not a lot of new innovations compared with other payment systems. How about in the developer side of things?
Avenues for developing with the Dwolla platform
Developers should run, not walk, to the Dwolla Developer Forums. More than just a place for Dwolla development related discussions (though it is that, too), this spot on the interwebs contains links to the key technical documentation you’ll need to get started using the Dwolla APIs.
Dwolla offers two major APIs to access their underlying payments system. You can read about both of them along with other API related issues in their “Primary API Releases” forum category. Choose the one which best meets your needs. The Dwolla APIs include:
- A SOAP API – WSDL at
https://www.dwolla.com/api/API.svc?wsdl; seems to be the more mature of the two Dwolla APIs - A RESTful API currently listed as “in a beta stage of sorts”; given that REST is a part of the One True Web Path, this is the API option that we’ll discuss in more detail below.
An aside on accessing the API documentation:
As noted above, you need to visit the “Primary API Releases” discussion category and from there click on “REST API” and “SOAP API” sticky notes to get to documentation for the Dwolla APIs. It would be a big improvement if Dwolla would offer a standalone PDF or HTML developer guide that pulls that key documentation together in one place, then linked to it prominently from a developer top level page above/outside of the forums. Digging through the forums to find API docs is very cumbersome at best; at worst, it might jettison a few developers interested in exploring what the platform can do but not willing to hunt and hunt and hunt some more for critical documentaiton. If I were a new documentation or evangelist hire at Dwolla, such a guide would be my numero uno top priority for helping developers make sense of their system and how to tie into it.
OK, enough free advice for Dwolla, just what can we do with their REST API?
Using the Dwolla REST API
Dwolla’s REST API uses JSON for server requests and responses and includes the following calls as of this writing:
authenticate– used to pass in credentials for authentication with the systemaccount information– you guess it, returns account holder name, address, balance, and the likebalance– the heart of things from a payments perspectivecontacts– array of Dwolla, Twitter, or Facebook contactsnearby– returns an array of geolocation objects for nearby usersregister– registers a new Dwolla user accountsend– send money with the receiving party paying the $0.25 transaction fee (receivers are the default fee payers in the Dwolla system)send_assume_costs– send money with the sending party paying the $0.25 transaction feesubscribe_notifications– used to request notification for account events such as deposits, withdrawals, and moretransactions– returns an array of transaction objects containing transaction ID, amount, date, etc.validatepin– validates a given PIN
The Dwolla REST API page provides much more information on each of the API calls along with a very simple C# example of authenticate.
Click here to read the complete article on the PayPal X Developer Network including a comparison of Dwolla to the PayPal X Platform.
This is the third part of a multi-part series examining alternative payment systems and how they compare to the PayPal X Platform and to each other.
In part one I introduced Amazon’s Flexible Payments Service. Part two discussed Facebook Credits. This time we are going to look at Google payments related technologies, focusing most intently upon the currently available Google Checkout. We’ll discuss what it is, where to go to start learning more about it, and the basics of how to use it, along with comparing it with PayPal solutions.
Introduction to Google payment technologies
Google hosted their first ever “Commerce track” at this year’s Google I/O conference in May, 2011. As a part of that track they had sessions on their bread and butter, pre-existing payment technology Google Checkout as well as their up and coming, developer preview In-App Payments technology. Subsequent to I/O, Google has also announced their plan for a NFC-based mobile wallet solution dubbed Google Wallet. So how do these three relate to each other?
Google defines Google Checkout in its developer homepage like so:
Google Checkout allows buyers in over 140 countries to purchase goods and services using a credit or debit card through our fast, secure checkout process. Google Checkout also helps you increase sales with the Google Checkout badge that can be displayed on your AdWords ads and Product Search listings. The Google Checkout badge highlights your store and informs potential customers that shopping with you will be safe and secure.
They go on to say:
In addition, our industry-leading fraud protection program will help lower your costs. Google Checkout’s Payment Guarantee protects 98% of Google Checkout orders on average, which means that for all eligible transactions, we’ll completely reimburse you for any chargebacks resulting from claims of unauthorized purchases and non-receipt of goods.
Key points to note concerning Google Checkout:
- Google Checkout is oriented towards online purchases of more traditional, in many cases physical goods
- Checkout is a deployed technology available for production use in many countried around the world today
- Checkout is “Buy Now” button or shopping cart based
- Google provides a number of security features and benefits for buyers and merchants including fraud protection and payment guarantees
These features show that Checkout is fairly similar to traditional PayPal technologies including Website Payments Standard and Website Payments Pro including PayPal’s Fraud Management Filters. We’ll have more to say about Checkout details and how it compares to the PayPal X Platform below.
The other two Google payments technologies we need to address are In-App Payments and Wallet.
Google In-App Payments have not yet launched for production, but when they do, they promise to support micropayments for in-application purchases such as game levels, individual digital music files, and Android Market purchases. As such, In-App Payments are very similar in design to PayPal’s Digital Goods with Embedded Payments functionality, a part of Adaptive Payments. Likewise Google Wallet has just been announced for availability at some point in the future; when it is, it looks to be similar to PayPal’s recently purchased Fig Card technology for mobile payments and customer ease.
Note that for this article I want to focus upon currently available solutions and resources so that we can make a fair comparison. Because of this, the rest of the article will dive a bit deeper into Google Checkout. Watch my posts to the DevZone blog for more information on Google In-App Payments and Wallet, including the related lawsuit which PayPal has filed against Google concerning mobile payments.
Google Checkout resources
The Google Checkout developer homepage is the place to go to start learning how to use the technologies required to integrate Checkout into your applications. From there you can read about how to choose between the various Checkout integration options.
Here are the three options along with some notes on what you can do with them and how you would integrate and use them:
- Buy Now button – sell a single item in one transaction; integrate by copying and pasting pre-generated HTML
- Online store gadget – multiple items per transaction; manage inventory via Google Docs; embed in Google sites, Blogger, iGoogle; copy and paste as simply as Buy Now button
- Shopping carts – vary from simple Google provided carts, to ones you build for yourself, to carts available from Google integration partners
More information is available on Google Checkout from the I/O session “Google Checkout: A Foundation For Payments” (click here to view the session on YouTube if the embedded copy below isn’t working for you).
Using the Google Checkout API
The Checkout API has the following major components:
- Purchasing – Cart API (items being purchased, tax and shipping settings), Merchant Calculations API (callback URL definition for custom calculation of discounts, taxes, shipping values)
- Fulfillment – Notification API (Checkout sends your server notifications a la IPN), Notification History API (your server can poll for notifications from Checkout should it miss something), and Order Processing API (make processing requests such as charge, ship, cancel, refund, etc.)
- Reporting – Order Report API (download CSVs order report data)
You can learn the details about implementing applications using these APIs via the numerous links for more information on the Google Checkout Overview page. You can also read through a series of Checkout developer articles and the Google Checkout API.
Click here to read the complete article on the PayPal X Developer Network including a comparison of Google Checkout to the PayPal X Platform.
PayPal X Platform
- @PayPalX and payments monthly highlights http://bit.ly/mJ2dXv #
- @PayPalX Mobile Checkout end-of-life 1 September 2011 http://bit.ly/mCS4oD (can anyone confirm?) #
- @PayPalX DevZone post: LinkedIn adds Jobs and Companies APIs http://bit.ly/muS215 #
- Doing Facebook development? Check out the unofficial FB Graph API Explorer http://bit.ly/jbTcWf (very handy, @PayPalX developers!) #
- Need to scan QR, Data Matrix, and/or UPC codes? Check out the AT&T Code Scanner http://bit.ly/lLeWUs (another @PayPalX post) #
- What is X.commerce? Learn all about the merger of the @PayPalX, eBay, and Magento developer communities here: http://t.co/hioE0JW #
- MEC from @PayPalX increased Crutchfield's mobile conversion 33.7%! Learn how you might get a similar bump http://bit.ly/j8fiBO #
- Part 1 of my new series comparing @PayPalX to alternative payment systems http://bit.ly/kkcTsA (this one examines Amazon FPS) #
- Part 2 of my alternative payments series http://bit.ly/jz8cOK compares Facebook Credits to @PayPalX http://bit.ly/jlhYlJ #
Big data
- Nice video training on Map-Reduce in #Python http://oreil.ly/m1QECy from @petewarden (read his write-up here http://bit.ly/jp6rJq ) #
Wireless and mobility
- Consumers now spend more time in mobile apps than on the Web http://on.mash.to/jO8ZtB via @mashable #
- Why Google App Inventor isn't just for novice #Android app builders http://oreil.ly/mAkJtE via @radar #
APIs and development
- Four key takeaways from the WWDC keynote earlier this month http://oreil.ly/muxsI4 really hammer on Apple's strong position via @radar #
Running
- How to train for your first 50k ultra marathon http://t.co/4nJwNML via @runnersworld #
- Ran 3.22 miles in 36 mins and felt great. First easy 5k after summer break. http://bit.ly/kL1Ydu #
This is the second part of a multi-part series examining alternative payment systems and how they compare to the PayPal X Platform and to each other.
Last time I introduced you to Amazon’s Flexible Payments Service. This time I want to discuss Facebook Credits. We’ll look at what they are, resources for learning more about them, how to use them programmatically, and how they compare with PayPal solutions.
Introduction to Facebook Credits
Facebook defines Facebook Credits thusly in their Help Center:
Facebook Credits are a virtual currency you can use to buy virtual goods in many games and apps on the Facebook platform
They provide a rather lengthy list of games and apps with which you can use Credits (click here to see the list).
A very important thing to note: The kind of purchases listed above are all occurring within the Facebook platform. None of them are external to the platform. And though Facebook’s Help Center definition sticks to the virtual goods line pretty closely, the Facebook Credits homepage itself paints with a broader stroke. It simple says that Facebook Credits are:
The safe and easy way to buy things on Facebook
Note that “things” can include all sorts of real world items and services, not just virtual goods. So if Facebook is going to move Credits into the more general e-commerce and physical purchases spaces, it needs to break out of the internal-only mold.
Enter Facebook Deals, Facebook’s foray into GroupOn-like local deals. The Deals launch was big news for Facebook watchers not just because of the local deals angle, but also because Deals launched with Credits as one of its payment options (the others are PayPal and credit cards, by the way). Facebook contends that the Deals purchases are still “ephermeral goods” since customers are buying vouchers which can be exchanged for things on the real world. But it seems pretty clear to anyone paying attention that you can now spend Credits and receive real world items or services in return, so Credits have essentially escaped the self imposed virtual goods restriction.
You can read more about the news that Deals allows for real world purchases using Credits in this Chicago Tribune article (click here to read). The news also received some analysis in a recent O’Reilly Radar post (click here to read).
The kicker in all of this? Facebook takes a 30% cut out of all Credits-based purchases! That’s a potentially ginormous income stream for Facebook, and a significant opportunity cost for merchants selling physical items and considering accepting Facebook Credits as a method of payment for them. I’ll have much more to say about this later in this article and series.
Facebook Credits documentation
The best place to start learning about Facebook Credits is the Facebook Credits homepage.
From there you can link to a variety of consumer oriented information including:
- How to get Facebook Credits including buying in-game or clicking on the Payments tab in Facebook accounts settings; either way you can then pay for Credits using a credit card, PayPal, Facebook Credits gift cards bought in physical stores such as Target, or mobile phone payments
- Information on exchanging unwanted third party gift cards for Credits via Facebook partner Plastic Jungle (also a PayPal partner with the ability to accept your gift cards for PayPal credit too, by the way)
- There’s also a link for opportunities to earn credits via special promotions with Facebook partners; think “advertising” and “cross-marketing” and you’re on the right track for many of these offers
- A link to the Facebook Credits page which you can “like” to keep abreast of the latest consumer-oriented Credits news and developments
- Games on Facebook, which if they allow for in-game purchases of premium items are required by Facebook to use Credits for those purchases
- The previously mentioned Help Center page listing the particular games which currently allow for premium purchases using Credits
That’s all well and good, but I want to dive deeper to show you what’s possible for developers with Facebook Credits. To do that, we need to read up on the Facebook Credits API.
Using the Facebook Credits API
The Facebook Developers portal says the following about the Facebook Credits API:
The Facebook Credits API enables a user to use credits as a method for purchasing digital and virtual goods within a Facebook canvas application. Please note: the credits api is not yet available for use by external websites but only on canvas iframe applications.
Note this currently works only on Facebook Platform pages. Note also that it says “is not yet available for use by external websites” (emphasis is mine). I think we should be expecting an external site capability, and thereby a much broader set of merchants and usage than we have today.
The Credits API page summarizes the steps involved in making a Facebook Credits based page. They are:
- Consumer places an order for something by clicking a “Pay with Facebook” button; order is submitted to Facebook via JavaScript
- Facebook displays item details of the purchase for the consumer’s review
- Assuming the consumer has sufficient Credits or stored payment credentials on file, the order is completed in-app (this is roughly analogous to an Embedded Payments flow in the PayPal X Platform); if the consumer doesn’t have a sufficient method of payment, they may be redirected to a new page to enter payment information
- When the consumer confirms and submits their order, Facebook calls the merchant application owner’s backend to settle the order
- Once the merchant application responds, Facebook completes the transaction and displays the results to the consumer
Facebook illustrates the detailed steps occurring during a purchase like this:
Facebook provides information on how to implement these steps in a Facebook Platform application on the Credits API page. You will need to spend some time working through that material if you are interested in prototyping Facebook Credits-based purchases in a Facebook Platform application of your own.
Click here to read the complete article on the PayPal X Developer Network including a discussion of Facebook Credits versus the PayPal X Platform.
BillDay.com 