This article is about small payments. For small loans see Microcredit.

Micropayments are means for transferring very small amounts of money, in situations where collecting such small amounts of money with the usual payment systems is impractical, or very expensive, in terms of the amount of money being collected.

Generally, micropayment systems accumulate many micropayments, and collect the accumulated amount of money as one regular payment either before or after the transactions. Examples of situations where micropayment systems are often used in the United States include public transportation systems, university student dining rooms, and tolls on roads. These are all areas where it would be very impractical to collect the price of the service from the consumer each time a service is rendered.

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TechCrunch

Google Reminds You That Knol Exists With New Policy Debates
Jason Kincaid Tue, 07 Oct 2008 18:25:09 -0000
Google launched Knol, a monetizable Wikipedia, last July, and since then most people seem to have either forgotten about it entirely or decided that it will never be as good as its Wiki predecessor. Today the site is launching a new section called Knol Debates, and while I don't think it will ever get me to use the site as a reference encyclopedia, it's a great idea. Google has brought together economists from the Cato Institute and the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) who have written their opinions regarding the current economic climate. Users are encouraged to participate in the conversation by leaving their comments, reviews, and suggested modifications to the original arguments. Google is also allowing users to vote on future topics for Knol debates with its recently launched Google Moderator tool. For more information, check out the announcement on Google's official blog.
ZoomProspector Launches To The Public To Help Businesses Relocate
Jason Kincaid Tue, 07 Oct 2008 17:00:41 -0000
ZoomProspector, the free site that allows businesses to search nationwide for the best places to relocate, has launched to the public. When we first introduced the site in April, we likened it to a Zillow for businesses. ZoomProspector rates cities across the country by a number of relevant criteria, including proximity to airports, commute times, demographics, or the availability of venture capital in the area (you can also choose to exclude some of these items if they aren't important to you). One of the more useful search functions is the ability to see what other businesses operate in the vicinity, so businesses can determine if they're going to be working close to a competitor, or even a potential client. Once a business has found an appropriate city, it can view individual properties that have been added by real estate agents.
Kampyle Helps You Understand Why Nobody Is Installing Your Software
Roi Carthy Tue, 07 Oct 2008 16:27:12 -0000
Instead of dwelling on whether an economic apocalypse is about to loom upon us, some startups are plugging away at improving their products. Israeli Kampyle is a case-in-point. Today the company is extending its feedback analytics platform from websites to client software—with a specific focus on the installation process, a major pain point for client applications.
How Low Can Google Go? Stock Drops Another 5 Percent to $350 Territory.
Erick Schonfeld Tue, 07 Oct 2008 16:05:15 -0000
Tech stocks continue to get creamed this morning, led by Google, whose stock is now officially a dropping knife (i.e., good luck catching it). Shares are down 5 percent so far today to about $353 (at one point they dipped as low as $350. That's more than a $50 drop since Friday and the lowest the stock has traded since March, 2006. The question on investor's minds: How low can it go? Even though Google is the best positioned Internet (or media) company to weather a slowdown in advertising spending, analysts have started cutting back their earnings estimates for the company. As for overall ad spending, Barclays Capital is trimming its estimates for both overall and Internet ad spending. Total ad spending in the U.S. (including cable and broadcast TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, Yellow Pages, direct mail, Internet, and outdoor) it forecasts will decline 3.6 percent this year to $284 billion and then another 5.5 percent in 2009 to $269 billion. Of that total, Barclays is still estimating that Internet ad spending will grow 17 percent to $24.8 billion in 2008. But that represents a $1.4 billion haircut from its previous 2008 estimate of $26.2 billion. (It expects 2009 Internet ad spending to grow another 14 percent to $28.3 billion). Although search advertising is most likely to hold up in the coming advertising recession, it's growth rate is expected to slow down. Nevertheless, display advertising is expected to get the worst of it, which means less growth for Google's DoubleClick business, but should hurt Yahoo, AOL, and Microsoft more. That's why some analysts are still bullish on Google. In a note today, Barclays Doug Anmuth writes:
Microsoft Quietly Closes Software Licensing and Protection Service
John Biggs Tue, 07 Oct 2008 15:34:49 -0000
It seems that Microsoft's SLPS, a programming suite for adding licensing and demo functionality to your .NET based software, is closed, adding a whiff of mystery to the down-turn. Could they have taken it out back and shot it? The service is currently not accepting new orders - at least as of last night - so either there is an upgrade afoot or Microsoft is paring back some of their less popular business units. Companies like Nalperion and CryptKey are obviously ready to step into the vacuum left by Redmond. UPDATED with comment from Microsoft
April Fools Check: Did Google Really Release Mail Goggles?
Michael Arrington Tue, 07 Oct 2008 15:32:59 -0000
I looked at the blog post and then I looked at the date. No, it's not April Fools and yes Google did just release a new product, created by Jon Perlow, called Mail Goggles. The new feature, which is a play on the term Beer Goggles (which refers to being so drunk that unattractive people look attractive) has the goal of helping you unsend those crazy drunken emails that sometimes go out late at night and on weekends.

ENN Investing and Corporate Social Responsibility

Study Suggests Carbon Market Encourages Chopping Forests
The current carbon market actually encourages cutting down some of the world's biggest forests, which would unleash tons of climate-warming carbon into the atmosphere, a new study reported Monday.
Technology Companies Tout Greener Credentials, but Significant Improvements Are Distant
With energy costs high and environmental friendliness making for good public relations, more tech companies are touting ways they are "greening" data centers, which serve up Web pages, swap Internet traffic, and process and store business information.
Westinghouse Seals Mega China Nuclear Deal
U.S.-based Westinghouse Electric signed on Tuesday a multi-billion-dollar deal with Chinese partners to build four nuclear reactors in eastern China, finalising a pact agreed between Beijing and Washington seven months ago.

The Financial Page

James Surowiecki: What drives market volatility?
James Surowiecki Mon, 25 Aug 2008 04:00:00 -0000
American investors are frazzled. True, oil prices have fallen from their most vertiginous highs, the dollar is a bit stronger, and the stock market has actually risen over the past month. But none of those things have happened in a smooth and steady fashion. The stock market’s “ascent,” in particular . . .
James Surowiecki: Too many stakeholders can be a deal-breaker.
James Surowiecki Mon, 04 Aug 2008 04:00:00 -0000
In the second decade of the twentieth century, it was almost impossible to build an airplane in the United States. That was the result of a chaotic legal battle among the dozens of companies--including one owned by Orville Wright--that held patents on the various components that made a . . .
James Surowiecki: Sponsoring Recklessness
James Surowiecki Mon, 21 Jul 2008 04:00:00 -0000
When do the words “not guaranteed” actually mean “guaranteed”? Whenever the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are involved. The two companies have long been required to tell investors that their securities are not guaranteed by the federal government. But in the financial markets everyone has always assumed that . . .

NYT > Your Money

Full of Doubts, U.S. Shoppers Cut Spending
Mon, 06 Oct 2008 18:27:04 -0000
Consumers are pulling back on their spending, all but guaranteeing that the economic situation will get worse.
New Jersey Offers a Preview of Possible Economic Woes to Come
Mon, 06 Oct 2008 05:22:09 -0000
New York City seems increasingly likely to fall into recession, many analysts say. To get a sense of what that might look like, one need only cross the Hudson River.
Our Towns: Shrapnel From Wall Street, Landing 40 Miles North
Sun, 05 Oct 2008 07:52:13 -0000
What’s life like these days in Darien, Conn., the community said to have the nation’s highest percentage of residents working in financial industries?

The Economist: The World Bank and the IMF

Chad: Breaking the bank
Thu, 25 Sep 2008 12:08:08 -0000
A vaunted model development project goes awryWHEN the World Bank agreed to help finance a controversial pipeline from oilfields in Chad to a port in Cameroon, it claimed to be raising the bar for transparency and good government in the extractive industries. It insisted that the government of Chad spend almost all its revenue from the project on development; to make sure it did so, the oil firms involved were to pay royalties into an escrow account monitored by an independent agency. Eight years later, the bar has fallen with a thud. Rather than comply with the bank’s strictures, the government of Chad has repaid its loans in full. It will now do as it pleases with its oil money.The project did not get off to an auspicious start: the government spent a chunk of its $25m signing bonus on arms. As local rebel movements grew stronger, and the conflict in neighbouring Darfur began to spill over into Chad, the government’s urge to funnel cash to the army only grew. It bickered frequently with the bank and the oil firms about the terms of the deal. The lockbox for revenue proved insecure, since the government simply took the money disbursed for education and health care and diverted it to less worthy causes. “Ultimately,” says a World Banker, “these projects depend on the political will of the governments involved.” ...
Poverty: The bottom 1.4 billion
Thu, 28 Aug 2008 11:35:37 -0000
The world is poorer than we thought, the World Bank discoversCorrection to this articleIN APRIL 2007 the World Bank announced that 986m people worldwide suffered from extreme poverty—the first time its count had dropped below 1 billion. On August 26th it had grim news to report. According to two of its leading researchers, Shaohua Chen and Martin Ravallion, the “developing world is poorer than we thought”. The number of poor was almost 1.4 billion in 2005. ...
Who runs the world?: Wrestling for influence
Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:02:45 -0000
The post-war global institutions have largely worked well. But rising countries and growing threats are challenging their pre-eminence THE powerful, like the victorious, do not just write history. They grab the seats at the top tables, from the United Nations Security Council to the boards of the big international economic and financial institutions. They collude behind closed doors. They decide who can join their cosy clubs and expect the rest of the world to obey the instructions they hand down. That is how many outsiders, not just in the poor world, will see the summit that takes place from July 7th to 9th of the G8, the closest the world has to an informal (ie, self-appointed) steering group. Leaders of seven of the world’s richest democracies, plus oil-and gas-fired Russia, gather this year in Toyako, on Hokkaido in northern Japan, to ruminate on climate change, rising food and energy prices, and the best way to combat global scourges from disease to nuclear proliferation. ...

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