GoPayment comes with a free card scanner for smartphones.
Intuit, which makes Quicken and Quickbooks has a service called GoPayment which includes apps for the BlackBerry, Android and iPhones and a small credit card reader that plugs into the audio port of a smartphone or connects via BlueTooth.
The service is aimed at small businesses including people who are mobile such as gardeners, plumbers and street merchants.
The app is free and there is even a small card reader that’s free but merchants pay a transaction fee to process credit card charges that starts at about 2.7 percent.
A somewhat similar service called Square can be used by almost anyone. There is even a way to use it if you don’t have a smartphone, but if you do they too will send you a small reader that works with Android and iPhones.
Larry Magid is a technology journalist and an Internet safety advocate. He serves as on-air technology analyst for CBS News, is co-director of ConnectSafely.org and founder of SafeKids.com and SafeTeens.com. He also writes columns that appear on CNET News, CBSNews.com, Huffington Post and the San Jose Mercury News.
His technology reports can be heard daily on CBS News and CBS affiliates throughout the U.S. and he has a daily tech segment on KCBS radio in San Francisco. He’s a regular contributor to BBC World Service and an occasional guest on National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation. He is often called upon for commentary by CBS television news, CNN and Fox News and has appeared on the CBS Evening News, ABC World News Tonight, the Today Show and CBS Early Show. He has also been a frequent contributor to the New York Times and was, for 18 years, a syndicated columnist for the Los Angeles Times.
He has written several books including the best-selling Little PC Book and is co-author (with Anne Collier) of MySpace Unraveled.
Larry served on the Obama Administration’s Online Technology Working Group and the Berkman Center’s Internet Safety Technology Task Force.
