Although they are a small, Toronto-based firm, the news of Google acquiring mobile payments startup Zetawire could mean a lot in the upcoming months. It was revealed yesterday by tech analysts at the 451 Group that Google had acquired the small company quite some time ago and that the purchase had gone unnoticed until now.
So what is Google's interest in a small, mobile payments company that seemingly only has one patent to their name? Well, that's pretty much it. That one patent which Zetawire owns “a payment system, an advertising system, and an identity management system” fits right into Google's interests. Especially when you start considering the Near Field Communication chip in the Google Nexus S.
Combine NFC with Zetawire's technology and you have a pretty awesome jump start on the market of mobile advertising and payments and most importantly, tracking of it's usage. Not that Google is new to any of that just, they can now offer it in better ways. [451Group via Techcrunch]
