I wish to add a support the developer option to an android application that I am developing.
There is an app on the market called Metro Messaging Beta. This app has a donate option that lets you select a donation tier. Once you click an option it takes you to an Android market page to actually purchase the donation. It is really slick and integrates well. Technically it might be an activation purchase or something like that.
How would I go about doing that? I want an option to donate that will not show up on my developer page on the android market.
You will have to use In App Purchases if you do not want it to show as a separate app on your developer page.
If you are fine with it showing as a separate app on the developer page, then you could have a sort of unlocker that when downloaded and run the first time creates a file somewhere, which your original app can check for. If you are giving additional features, then you could unlock them via in app or the create a file thing, or you could move the common code from the free and donate version into a library project, add the extra feature code to the donate project and publish a separate apk.
You could try using PayPal, but that is against the Google Play policies and I do know people who’s apps were banned because of its usage, so I would not recommend it.