2011 is going to be a big year for payments, with more startups and mature companies getting funded in the space than almost ever before. It's important to make the distinction between the headline chasers, the slow moving giants struggling for a piece of the pie and the companies that have a chance at real disruption. For my money Facebook and Square are both very interesting companies to follow in this space. In my last post on TechCrunch I discussed Google and Apple and their efforts around payments, and explained why I don't yet think they are serious players for the whole payments pie. The post ended with some ideas around what serious contenders could look like, and who are other potential large companies that could step into user-to-user payments. I'd like to expand on that, looking at how the companies above might take advantage of chinks in Paypal's armor (disclosure: my consulting company, Analyzd , has done a project with Square in the past).