Google Testing Android Market In-App Billing, To Launch Next Week

Google has announced today that it has started testing in-app billing for the Android Market and that it will launch starting next week. In-app billing has been around for app makers on iOS for a while and it has lead to some nice chunk of change for those developers. Makers of apps for the Android Market could have some of the same financial success once it gets approved for the Android Market.

In-app purchasing lets users get the app for free to test it out and decide to purchase items on the app or game later on. This makes it much more convenient for users to purchase items since they don't have to leave the app to complete the transaction. This is essential to the free-to-play model because many don't want to pay 99 cents for an app just to try it out.

This type of business model allows for rapid growth because it stabilizes the companies and doesn't require developers to make ad-based versions of apps or games. Facebook uses in-app purchasing as well in games like FarmVille and it lead to large increase in digital commerce. The Android Market is expanding rapidly and so is the number of phones running Android, which is sure to attract more developers to the Android platform.