New Google phone a 'virtual wallet'

A new Google mobile phone which has a chip embedded that makes it a virtual wallet so people can 'tap and pay' is poised to make its debut.

The successor to the internet firm's Nexus One smartphone runs on fresh 'Gingerbread' software and is fitted with what's called a 'near-field communication chip' for financial transactions, according to Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

"I have here an unannounced product that I carry around with me," Schmidt said while pulling a touch-screen smartphone from a jacket pocket during an on-stage chat at a web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco.

"You will be able to take these mobile devices that will be able to do commerce," he said, "essentially, bump for everything and eventually replace credit cards. In the industry it is referred to as tap-and-pay."

The near-field chips store personal data that can be transmitted to readers, such as at a supermarket checkout counter, by tapping a handset on a pad.

Schmidt hid markings that might reveal which company made the mobile phone, and playfully stuck with referring to it only as an unannounced product.

Google worked with Taiwanese electronics titan HTC to make the Nexus One handsets it released in January in a high profile entry into the booming smartphone market.

Nexus One smartphones built on Google's Android platform won rave reviews for their capabilities but weren't a hit with buyers.

Inside Retail

Use Your Phone Number to Make Online Purchases with paymo

Online shopping once required a credit card. Boku makes it possible to make purchases online using a mobile phone number instead. Rather than keying in your credit card number, address and security code, all you need to make a purchase using Boku’s payment option, Paymo, is your phone number.

Because the cell phone carriers charge merchants fees as high as 35% for this kind of transaction, Boku started out by exclusively targeting virtual goods. The production cost for such goods is minimal, and therefore their retailers can typically afford the high carrier fees. The company has since expanded to providing its payment option for online services like dating sites and for digital goods like music downloads.

Co-founder Ron Hirson says that the company next aims to expand as a payment method for pay-walled content. Eventually, as carrier rates come down, it aims to be an easy checkout option on ecommerce sites and for frequently purchased physical goods like fast food, coffee and transit.

Boku launched in 2008 when Hirson, Mark Britto and Erich Ringewald — all of whom had founded and sold other companies at this point — acquired mobile payment companies Paymo and Mobillcash. Since then, they’ve raised more than $40 million in three rounds of funding and have partnered with carriers in 64 countries, most recently Brazil and Israel.

While Boku faces competition from companies like Zong, onebip and Fortumo they claim to have the largest reach. Their partnerships with more than 200 carriers gives them access to about 2 billion potential customers. How successful Boku will be at making their payment method an option on more of these 2 billion people’s purchases will depend largely on carrier fees. The high fees that carriers currently charge merchants will unlikely outweigh the convenience that Boku provides its customers.

Partnerships with Vodafone in the UK and AT&T in the U.S. have inched Boku closer to becoming a plausible option for a wider variety of goods by creating higher price points, which allow consumers to make larger purchases and lower carrier fees.

With the company already making about one transaction every second, we’re not making an astounding prediction by betting on its success. Boku was smart to target the global market from the start. There are about 5 billion mobile phones worldwide, and — especially outside of the United States — not all of their owners have credit cards. Enabling these people to make online purchases increases merchants’ potential customer pools.

Boku also takes advantage of three things the world is becoming increasingly obsessed with: online shopping, convenience and secure payments (eBay CEO John Donahoe recently pronounced mobile the safest way to pay online). Although Boku declined to comment on rumors that both Apple and Google (Google) want to acquire it, we understand why they’d be interested.

Sarah Kessler - Mashable

Mobile Myths Debunked

Nice summary from Adage on the 'real' status of the mobile phone world

----------------

Blackberry Is Not Dead, Steve Jobs Isn't King of Handsets, and Other Conventional Wisdom You Should Reconsider

by Kathryn Koegel
Published: September 13, 2010

Mobile is a confusing marketing space, and we're in the midst of a hype cycle perhaps equaled only by the dot-com frenzy of years past. And whenever there's hype, misconceptions aren't far behind. Here's a look at four of them -- and a reminder why you shouldn't believe everything the soothsayers say.

[Excerpted from "What You Need to Know About Mobile Marketing," a recent Ad Age Insights report.]

It's not an all-Apple world ... and it never will be
There seems to be an app for just about everything at this point (with more than 250,000 available, and counting). And while Apple seems to have a lock on the app market, in fact it represents just a small part of the U.S. mobile market, according to ComScore. Gartner, which tracks phone shipments rather than usage, pegs Apple's 2009 U.S. market share at 5%. The iPhone is a game-changing phone, however, as its interface is the one that managed to alter consumer behavior irrevocably; as a result, it has enjoyed the greatest interest from developers.

Source: comScore custom survey, November 2009

The iPhone audience is a distinctive one. It is youngish (but not too young; consumers under the age of 24 are not likely to be able to afford an iPhone, or to be locked into a long-term AT&T contract). And it is made up of early adopters, those who influence the purchases of others and who are a marketer's dream. If Apple's exclusive contract with AT&T is done with this year, as has been reported, and a Verizon version hits the market, there is no telling how much Apple's penetration will spike. Until that happens, there are other platforms marketers must pay attention to.

Blackberry is not dead
Research in Motion's BlackBerry is still a significant presence in the market and will continue to be, especially in the business world. The BlackBerry is supported by most Windows-based concerns. For marketers looking to reach the business audience, high-net-worth individuals and a slightly older demo than the iPhone, targeting through the BlackBerry is a smart (nay, essential) move. The BlackBerry challenge has been that, with the mass of devices having a trackball rather than a touchscreen, it's simply not as interactive an interface, and can make it difficult to even locate apps. BlackBerry has plans to introduce a new browser.

Consumers love Google, and now, to ride the wave of that affinity, the company has rolled out Android. Research on future phone purchases from ComScore and ChangeWave indicates T-Mobile's ads touting its 3G capabilities -- plus the fact that not all consumers want a contract with AT&T, and that the Android is a close-enough facsimile to the iPhone -- suggests we are at the dawn of a phone war that stands to benefit all consumers, as it likely will lead to better service and pricing [see chart 16, pull from page 14 in white paper].

Microsoft ceded its early dominance in the smartphone market to RIM and BlackBerry, but this fall it is launching Windows 7 for mobile. Reports from the Mobile World Congress earlier this year, where the system made its debut, were positive.

Not all people do all things on all phones: market accordingly
At this point in the evolution of mobile as a marketing medium, the number of consumers who perform activities such as downloading apps or looking at the mobile web or WAP (wireless access protocol) is relatively low; comScore estimates that 34% of those with cellphones consume some sort of mobile media (WAP or apps), 31% use SMS (but do not consume any media via the phone) and 35% use phones only for making calls. This is changing rapidly, however, along with the adoption of smartphones. What people do on their phones is predictive by age and gender. The younger a consumer is, the more likely he or she is to personalize his or her phone, or purchase a ringtone or wacky screensaver. The older, more business-oriented consumer, however, is more likely to have an unlimited data plan and, thus, to use the phone for web access. Guys are more likely to listen to music and purchase games on their phones. [see chart 17, pull from page 15 in white paper].

RIM's market share and the demographics of mobile media activities

"People need to stop looking at mobile consumer activity across modalities -- browsing, apps, and SMS/MMS -- and think that one form will predominate while others go away. More importantly, marketers need to stop wishing for this to happen. While it might be easier to exist in a world where mobile consumers only used apps, the reality is that SMS and browser-based activity will continue to reach audiences that apps cannot and, in the case of SMS, be a more effective medium to drive response," Evan Neufeld, VP-marketing, GroundTruth, said.

Smartphones are not likely to ever penetrate the entire market
Just as there are people out there with analog TVs with those funky converter boxes, some people just want to use their phones to talk and will not ever be incented to pay fees for data. Some people simply do not want e-mail and media whenever, wherever. Due to behavior displayed by younger consumers, the group described here will likely concentrate in older demos. Smartphone adoption may be somewhat analogous to the digital video recorder. While the TV industry worried that DVRs would achieve much larger penetration in a short period, in truth, DVR usage stalled out at around 30% of TV households in 2009, according to Nielsen. Not everyone wants to pay for the service, and not everyone, clearly, desires that much control over their media.

It's not as complicated as it sounds
Not all types of mobile marketing apply to all companies, and the "crawl, walk, run" principle should be employed with mobile. Pick the discipline that most relates to your product category and start there. For some content providers and retailers, it may be optimizing their sites for mobile (a surprising number of companies have not yet done this). For retailers with successful email programs, it may be developing an SMS program to appeal to the legions of "textirati" who prefer SMS to e-mail. For any marketer using print, TV or outdoor, activation programs can extend the effectiveness of their campaigns by helping to generate opt-in lists or hand-raising customers. Whatever you do, don't just develop a one-platform app and assume that you've got mobile covered.

iButterfly

Nice AR game / slash coupon app

Foursquare Launches Location Layers - This is Big

I agree... this could be a huge development. Thanks Josh and ReadWriteWeb

Written by Marshall Kirkpatrick / July 6, 2010 11:44 AM

Looking at life through rose-colored glasses? How about walking through your town and seeing it as the Huffington Post or the Independent Film Channel sees it? IFC announced a new campaign this morning with leading location-based social network Foursquare that will allow you to do just that. The Huffington Post launched a Foursquare layer today as well.

IFC polled its member base for short descriptions of their favorite places in the towns they lived in or visited, then picked the place-descriptions that best suited the IFC's brand ("Always on, slightly off") to upload into a Foursquare database. Foursquare users can now opt-into getting those tips pushed to them whenever they check in near one of the annotated locations. It's a chance to effectively say, "I want to see this town as IFC fans see it." For marketers, this has got to be incredibly appealing, and for urban explorers it could be one of the best examples yet of effective Augmented Reality.

Location as Platform

In January, Canadian newspaper chain Metro did a deal with Foursquare that tied content like restaurant reviews to specific locations as "tips." When we saw that, we said that the era of location as platform had arrived. Then, in April the Wall St. Journal began experimenting with location-based news, adding interesting news tidbits to locations around New York City on Foursquare. That was getting interesting - not just lightweight content like restaurant reviews but things like a note that a terrorism suspect was once arrested in a particular location!

Please Push Me

Now the next logical step is to enable users to opt-in to having a publisher's content pushed to them. That's what IFC and on a smaller scale, the Huffington Post, have done today. Click to follow these publishers, check in near one of the locations they have annotated and your phone will get special tips pushed to it just like you get when near a place where one of your individual friends has left a tip.

A Psychedelic Journey

IFC's crowdsourcing its data set is very cool. It's not hard to imagine any number of organizations mobilizing their constituents to mark-up the physical world like this. Other organizations already have data geo-located. The Huffington Post Foursquare page is very sparse right now, but imagine if stories were parsed for geolocation (Superfeedr now does that automatically, for example) and populated locations by XML. You might check in downtown and get pushed a note from Huffington Post coverage of a protest or other news event a few blocks away. Not into HuffPo? How about a HotAir layer? Why silo yourself? Let's get a Memeorandum layer in Foursquare!

See also: Why We Check In: The Reasons People Use Location Based Social Networks

There may be some technical matters to work out before dynamic content can be fed into Foursquare, but I'm sure the company is working on those. (In response to this article Huffington Post Social Media Editor Rob Fishman tweets that many of the ideas discussed here "are already underway.")

I'm ready to follow the local historical society, an environmental justice organization or two, perhaps an art-graffiti-watchers association - the possibilities are nearly endless. Imagine allowing background location tracking and notification for some layers. "To see the world through the lenses of my favorite organizations" would be a nice addition to the reasons why people say they use check-in apps.

Can Facebook implement this kind of feature once location is rolled into its service? It's a little hard to imagine; this feels like a feature that would best come from a service with location at its core.

In a perfect world, these location-based social networks would act like browsers, able to see and post interoperable location-based data from and to any platform. Don't hold your breathe on that, though. The potential impact of marking-up the world is large enough that single vendors are most likely to try to dominate it all on their own first.

This is a really exciting idea.

Shoe-Shopping via Short Code

Thanks Next Great Thing for this post on short code shopping

Despite th obvious issues the author pioint sout, i think it's an intersting way to run ecommerce in a low-fi way

October 5, 2009 by NGT

Shoe-Shopping via Short Code

Not counting content for the mobile phone, like ringtones, mobile commerce is still in its infancy in the United States. From fast food (Papa John’s) to fashion (Net-a-Porter), marketing and sales executives with pioneering attitudes have been experimenting with mobile commerce. Many are still trying to figure out what does and does not work in connecting with consumers and their wallets via their mobile phones.

Since most US mobile users still do not have a smart phone, companies have to decide whether to offer a richer experience via an optimized mobile Web site or app, but to potentially fewer customers, or reach more customers via something almost every mobile user has, such as SMS. While at first blush it might seem best to err on the side of scale, my recent experience with an SMS-based m-commerce platform convinced me otherwise.

Here's how it went down. A few weeks ago while on vacation, I was flipping through a women’s magazine and came across an ad which contained a potentially cute pair of shoes. As there was a mobile call to action and I was nowhere near my laptop, I was intrigued. I texted the code to the short code and the process began.

However, several messages back and forth later, I did not buy the shoes. Never having shopped for anything this way or from this service or retailer before, I was not sure what to expect. Other than “standard messaging rates apply,” neither the ad nor the first message from ShopText (on behalf of the retailer) offered any expectations. The process itself was a long series of messages, which seemed to take longer than if I had just gone to my nearest Internet connection, logged on and created an account. Frustrated, I aborted somewhere along the way (again, not sure how far along as nothing was communicated regarding what to expect).

My issue was not just with the cumbersome and unclear nature of the shopping process itself. Unfortunately, shopping by text message did not meet the high bar for shopping for shoes virtually that sites like Endless and Zappos have set. The print ad offered almost no detail in the photo and accompanying text and none of the text messages offered any additional details (thus, why I earlier referred to the shoes as “potentially cute”). I had no idea what the heel height and type were, what type of pattern had been laser cut into the leather, if there was a platform in the shoe, etc. These are all extremely important details to me, as I expect they are to most women, when evaluating a shoe.

Even though I found my particular experience lacking, I have to applaud this retailer and magazine for trying to increase the engagement with their young, connected, female consumers via the ShopText platform. They recognize that there is a real opportunity in connecting with consumers via their mobile phones, an item that most consumers state they cannot and do not live without (per Synovate’s recent research that found “three quarters of the survey respondents - including 82% of Americans - never leave home without their phones, and 36% of people across the world (42% of Americans) go as far as to say they 'cannot live without' their cell phone”).

However, for m-commerce to outgrow its baby shoes, all of the parties involved need to rethink how women are accustomed and want to shop for shoes virtually. Otherwise, for this category of goods, ShopText will need to clarify the level of service offered by renaming itself “OrderText.”

- Valerie Cashour

Future of mobile commerce, in a skinny vanilla latte?

Thanks CNET for this on an iphone app that's actually useful:

Your decaf caramel macchiatos and no-whip pumpkin spice lattes are going mobile.

In a double-shot launch (sorry), coffee giant Starbucks unveiled late Tuesday its first two iPhone apps. The first one, called MyStarbucks, is a no-brainer: you can use the phone's GPS capability to find nearby stores (previously, this was available via text message), search ingredient and calorie information for Starbucks beverages, study coffee bean varieties, and build virtual drinks to see what exactly would be in one if you ordered it.

But it's the second app, called Starbucks Card Mobile, that could be worth a double-take. The app allows for balance check and refilling of Starbucks gift cards, which the company has expanded into a customer loyalty program by offering discounts, free refills, and two hours of free Wi-Fi to cardholders. And in two experimental test markets, the Starbucks Card Mobile application can use a barcode to replace the plastic gift card altogether.

As far as mobile e-commerce is concerned, this could be a big deal.

Mobile retail promotions, from text-message codes to redeem for free drinks to the nascent pop-up deals in geolocation app Foursquare, are nothing new. And mobile payments are commonplace in countries like Japan and South Korea. In the U.S., they haven't caught on yet. But having a ubiquitous national retailer like Starbucks in the game could change this.

The barcode-based electronic gift card from the new Starbucks iPhone app.

(Credit: Starbucks)

"We're really venturing into new waters in terms of mobile payment," Stephen Gillett, senior vice president of digital ventures at Starbucks, said regarding the Starbucks Card Mobile app.

"The mobile app is really the powering of some of our most frequently used functions on (the Starbucks card's Web site) and our in-store activity in terms of balance and payment and favorite orders," Gillett said. The app was developed internally with some help from third-party companies like mobile billing start-up mFoundry, he said.

Unless you're geographically very lucky, you won't be able to pay for a venti frappuccino with your iPhone just yet. Only 16 Starbucks outlets, eight in its home turf of Seattle and eight in Silicon Valley, can currently handle the barcode-based gift cards. These are stores already internally designated as test spots for new Starbucks technology, Gillett said.

"In some of these Seattle stores we've tested store manager laptops, allowing them to get instant messaging, full access to e-mail, and conferencing," he said. "These are some of the stores that got the new AT&T Wi-Fi earlier."

As a result, that means the integration process may be smoother for the test stores than it would be for a random Starbucks elsewhere in the country. "The store employees are used to getting new kinds of technology, new kinds of services earlier than most markets," Gillett said.

Estimates vary on just how big the U.S. gift card industry is, but according to the Federal Reserve, it's certainly well into the billions and continues to grow. As for Starbucks, already one in seven transactions at the coffee chain involves its array of gift and loyalty cards, Gillett says. "We see a significant amount of our traffic represented by loyalty cards of some sort," he said.

And eliminating that need for a physical gift card is a pretty obvious next step, especially if you've ever spent any time fishing around for one in a handbag.

The question is whether a new concept like barcode-based gift cards can easily scale to a chain as widespread as Starbucks. Mobile barcode systems have typically been rolled out in far smaller contexts--short-term advertising campaigns, for example, or companies with far smaller reach such as Equinox, a high-end gym in a handful of U.S. cities that recently began letting members check in with an iPhone-based barcode. And while Starbucks has been battered by the recession and has closed several hundred stores in the U.S., it still operates or licenses over 10,000 outlets in the U.S. and thousands more overseas.

So Starbucks is taking a slow approach to mobile payment testing, which means that customers outside of Silicon Valley and Seattle might not be seeing it any time soon.

"We're really working on getting that (customer) feedback before we put any long-term plans in future markets," Gillett said. "This really is a consumer-driven app in so many ways. This is an app that we need the customer experience to have a very strong influence on."

He was equally mum om whether Starbucks Card Mobile will offer advance mobile ordering options or other potential features. "Again, we're really looking to this app hitting the real world before we lock in future functionalities," Gillett said.

The same goes for taking the app beyond Apple's handset. Apple and Starbucks have a years-long and complicated history encompassing both iTunes and AT&T wireless service, but a mobile payment option ideally wouldn't be restricted to the iPhone.

"We are definitely interested in non-iPhone based platforms, particularly Windows and Android and BlackBerry," Gillett said. "But at this point we're just really focused on the launch for this."

Mobile shopping

Net a Porter, the world leading online fashion retailer have just released the NET-APP™, a unique shopping application for the iPhone and iPod touch.

The application syncs with your phone and automatically downloads content automatically so you never miss the latest arrivals and fashion news. Scroll through you favourite designers with ClosetFlow™ designed so you can choose how to view the hottest pieces, either vertically or horizontally or even zoom in.

The app allows you to shop wherever you are, create wish lists on the move, keep up to date with weekly fashion news, shop new arrivals twice a week and share your choices with your friends.

Top Mobile Trend: Mobile Wallets

Thanks again Next Great Thing

November 3rd, 2008 by Sarah

Wallets don’t mix with skinny jeans, and since we hope cargo pants won’t be back anytime soon, we’re eagerly anticipating m-commerce.

Spurred by a generation used to paying with a click, mobile payment systems are in high demand Stateside. And thanks to the emergence of Near Field Communications and other innovative solutions, it won’t be long before we get them.

Just in the last week of October, both Visa (San Francisco) and New York-based Citi’s Mobile Money Ventures (MMV) announced the rollout of initiatives designed to enhance the banking functionality of people’s mobile phones.

Visa has a pilot program in Canada (through the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) and Rogers Wireless ) that lets users wave and pay for goods at the point of sale using their mobile phones.

Pilot participants will be issued specially equipped, near-field communications-enabled Motorola mobile phones that can simply be waved at Visa payWave-enabled checkout readers at select retail stores and fast food restaurants in Toronto’s downtown.

Citibank Hong Kong is letting customers perform mobile banking or stock trading using MMV’s m-banking platform, which is independent of device and network.

Among the features that Hong Kong customers can use are account inquiry and management, funds transfers, payments and time deposit accounts. Also available is stock trading, including buying and selling, pending order management, stock quotes and portfolio management.

Meanwhile, some smaller fish are figuring out alternate ways to enable mobile payments using existing (and widely used) mobile technology:

Tagattitude uses the voice function of phones for secure payment through a technology called Near Sound Data Transfer—NSDT. The two phones establish an audio channel, go through a series of questions and then transfer money from one account to another. Here is a video of the mobile payment in action (WARNING: it may cause dizziness and motion sickness.)

Anam Mobile SMS Money Transfer allows users to send money to another person using standard text messaging. After both parties subscribe to the service, subscriber A can send money to subscriber B with a standard text and then both subscribers receive texts back when the money has been transferred.

PocketFuzz equips cash-only retailers at festivals, venues, and concerts with their simple SMS-based payment solution that works with any major card or bank, any carrier, and any phone. A buyer’s text along with their personalized secure 4 digit PIN completes a secure transaction in mere seconds. Charges appear on users credit card or bank statements just as any other purchase would. First time users can set-up their account online or using a call back method.

At the end of the day, we just want to dial up a Big Mac. And we don’t think we should have to move to Japan to do it.

Top Mobile Trend: Mobile Giving

Thanks Next Great Thing for this on Mobile giving. Who says gen Y are a bunch of self-obsessed, navel gazing shifters?

November 17th, 2008 by Allison

Gen Y is often called “socially-conscious,” but they’ve also been tagged with “impatient,” “distractible,” and—like most youth—a bit “poor”. After throwing virtual change at Obama for a year, though, young philanthropists seem to be in the swing of giving. The Democrats just made it so easy; they didn’t even have to leave Facebook! They also rallied young supporters at events to text in small donations. This method of giving works for youth because it’s very impulsive—like them—so the donor barrier is lowered significantly. Now we’ve noticed a handful of new charity platforms looking to quite literally “mobilize” this young civic-minded generation.

This new trend hinges on the work of the Mobile Giving Foundation, which effectively eliminated the “carrier barrier” to mobile charity. Previously, carriers would take a big chunk (HALF!) of every donation. Combined with a cap of $5 donation per text (with a max of 5 texts = $25), the model was completely unfeasible. Now MGF has positioned themselves as a clearinghouse, managing to get fees waived for select non-profits so 90% of the donation goes to the charity, while they take 10%. The only stickler is Verizon, which only approved about 20 non-profits on its network.

Several application service providers are working with MGF to help non-profits run and manage their campaigns across platforms, while other companies are reimagining donation models to work on mobile.

• mGive from Mobile Accord allows micro donations via text with carrier billing through MGF. Alicia Keyes used this text-to-donate platform during her As I Am concert tour, asking her fans to text the word ‘ALIVE’ to shortcode 90999 to donate $5. Her effort raised $40,000 in donations for Keep a Child Alive.

• MobileCommons helps non-profits, advocacy and political groups create, manage and report on SMS communication campaigns. Campaigns are already learning how to engage women through mobile technology. Using MC technology, the Women’s Campaign Forum obtained 150 nominations of pro-choice women who should run for elected office via text message for its She Should Run program in about five minutes (more on it here).

• CredoMobile is an MVNO that builds giving right into their revenue model. They started back in 1985 with a long distance service where 1% of your charges went to progressive nonprofits of your choice. As they put it “your bill serves as a progressive newsletter and your phone company as a progressive lobby.” Now they’ve switched to mobile and to date, the company and its members have donated more than $60 million to NPOs. The company raises money–and awareness–for voter registration. Last year they staged political street theater using projected cartoon images on the sides of buildings drawn by political satirist Tom Tomorrow. Passerby could text dialogue inside the thought bubbles of Bush and Cheney.

Adtech panel discussion proposal - World 2.0

Well happy as I am about changing times in the US, the massive mainstream usage of social media/networking platforms (and i’m citing the US election as just the latest, biggest example here) has hammered something home to me: web 2.0, social media, etc are so clearly out of the underground that it’s just not that exciting to talk about it all anymore. And before i get a thousand social media guru’s blogging me to death about how brands don’t get the space, how vital our insights all are etc, i do realise there’s still a lot of good business to be had helping brands get involved (… which is what it’s all about isn’t it?) All i’m saying is that for me at least it feels like a ‘cost of entry/ignore it at your peril’ discussion these days, rather than the ‘brave new word talk’ of a while back.

So, with that in mind, i’d like to propose a panel/session be set up at Adtech talk about something that is very real and very exciting - making the real world interactive. Augmented mobile reality, hyper-reality, interactive real world… whatever you call it, to my mind the most exciting developments in digital marketing and communications are not happening on the web, but at the points where the web and real world meet. Advances in RFID, mobile, GPS, interactive projections, face/image recognition, motion sensing, etc etc etc are turning the world around us, and all the objects in it, into a massive, deep, digitally interactive experience that I think holds a lot more exciting possibilities than rehashing web 2.0 yet again.

So, before google announces that android will become an operating system for everything, how about starting our own discussions and momentum for World 2.0? I’d be happy to get involved, talk through some examples/ideas, bring some big name clients along… anyone else?

Top Mobile Trend: Mobile Wallets

Thanks Next Great Thing
November 3rd, 2008 by Sarah

Wallets don’t mix with skinny jeans, and since we hope cargo pants won’t be back anytime soon, we’re eagerly anticipating m-commerce.

Spurred by a generation used to paying with a click, mobile payment systems are in high demand Stateside. And thanks to the emergence of Near Field Communications and other innovative solutions, it won’t be long before we get them.

Just in the last week of October, both Visa (San Francisco) and New York-based Citi’s Mobile Money Ventures (MMV) announced the rollout of initiatives designed to enhance the banking functionality of people’s mobile phones.

Visa has a pilot program in Canada (through the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) and Rogers Wireless ) that lets users wave and pay for goods at the point of sale using their mobile phones.

Pilot participants will be issued specially equipped, near-field communications-enabled Motorola mobile phones that can simply be waved at Visa payWave-enabled checkout readers at select retail stores and fast food restaurants in Toronto’s downtown.

Citibank Hong Kong is letting customers perform mobile banking or stock trading using MMV’s m-banking platform, which is independent of device and network.

Among the features that Hong Kong customers can use are account inquiry and management, funds transfers, payments and time deposit accounts. Also available is stock trading, including buying and selling, pending order management, stock quotes and portfolio management.

Meanwhile, some smaller fish are figuring out alternate ways to enable mobile payments using existing (and widely used) mobile technology:

Tagattitude uses the voice function of phones for secure payment through a technology called Near Sound Data Transfer—NSDT. The two phones establish an audio channel, go through a series of questions and then transfer money from one account to another. Here is a video of the mobile payment in action (WARNING: it may cause dizziness and motion sickness.)

Anam Mobile SMS Money Transfer allows users to send money to another person using standard text messaging. After both parties subscribe to the service, subscriber A can send money to subscriber B with a standard text and then both subscribers receive texts back when the money has been transferred.

PocketFuzz equips cash-only retailers at festivals, venues, and concerts with their simple SMS-based payment solution that works with any major card or bank, any carrier, and any phone. A buyer’s text along with their personalized secure 4 digit PIN completes a secure transaction in mere seconds. Charges appear on users credit card or bank statements just as any other purchase would. First time users can set-up their account online or using a call back method.

At the end of the day, we just want to dial up a Big Mac. And we don’t think we should have to move to Japan to do it.

Is your website ready for a handheld world?

Thanks again to iMedia Connection - breathe in, this is a long one but worthy

Is your website ready for a handheld world?

Handheld devices are more capable than ever, but their capabilities remain extremely limited in comparison to the kind of desktops and laptops most commonly used to browse the web. With their relatively tiny screens and slow connections, sending a handheld device the code for your normal website is likely to produce confusion and frustration in those you're trying to serve, leading to severely curtailed responses.

In theory, of course, any website can be accessed by any mobile device. But in reality, many websites are coded with much more robust devices like desktops and laptops in mind. The trends to rely on network- and CPU-intensive technologies -- and to have the web browser in continuous communication with the web server (a la Ajax) -- further limit the compatibility of many standard websites with mobile devices.

Important differences
The three main differences between handhelds and larger computers are the:

1. Much smaller screen size
2. Relative scarcity on handhelds of support for advanced browser-related technologies like cookies, Java and Flash -- without which many standard websites just don't perform well or look good
3. Intrinsically slower and sometimes spotty nature of the networks serving handhelds
All this is why the most successful websites aimed at mobile browsers are now being optimized for this class of equipment.

Why is this important? One reason is the sheer size of the opportunity. For example, more people have internet access through cellphones than through computers. In addition, Nielson Mobile reportedly tabulated some 9 million purchases from cellphones during the month of April. That's up more than 70 percent, year over year.

Not everyone agrees on the best designs and technological underpinnings for successful websites targeted at mobile users. But there are broad swaths of concurrence on what's best and what's not. 

Focus on minimizing website size

Because of the slower speeds and smaller screens associated with mobile devices, every bit of data you attempt to serve deserves consideration. That's why it's vitally important that you reduce the amount of content on your mobile-optimized site, removing extraneous information, animation and all other eye candy. Tables, so handy for coding standard websites, require too many bits to be beneficial for mobile websites.

With bit rates for 3G handhelds hovering under 15 Mbit/sec, there's a strictly limited amount of data that can be transmitted if your website is to load in 10 seconds or less. Think "dial-up" rather than broadband.

Fortunately, most handheld browsers show the incoming material bit by bit as it arrives, and mobile browsers that use proxy servers tend to load whatever data the screen is trying to display at the moment. Still, users won't sit still for long delays at home, and they feel even less inclined to do so when they're on the go. So cutting website sizes to the bone is central to optimizing for handhelds.

Serve only the most important content

On mobile-oriented websites, it's critical to keep content concise so the need for users to scroll is minimized. Content developers and marketers often have a desire to overkill -- they want to make literally everything available. But for mobile websites, right now that's just not practical.

The quantity of content you should offer on your mobile website(s) obviously depends on your reader base. For example, experience shows that "pop culture" content doesn't captivate users enough to keep them scrolling through long articles on their cellphones. Articles that are 200 words or fewer are the most likely to be completed. On the other hand, travelers seeking specific details about a locale have shown themselves willing to scroll the small screen as many as 20 times or so. On many mobile websites, checklists with only half-a-dozen items have proven to be particularly well received.

It's also important to understand the kind of information your mobile customer wants. Why are they accessing your site from their mobile, rather than their laptop or desktop? Usually, it's because they're not browsing for deep learning, but looking for a quick hit of specific information. Many mobile users simply want a phone number or address, directions, a schedule of events, perhaps a restaurant menu.

Understand why users come to your mobile website rather than your standard website, and put the information they are most likely to want up front.

Layout and graphics

Go for practical layout. Design is critical because mobile devices vary so greatly. The iPhone and 3G devices are much faster than older technologies, of course, but when you're optimizing for mobile, you must consider and cater to the lowest common denominator. For example, with less real estate available on a mobile screen, websites optimized for mobile should generally look very different from their desktop cousins. Ideally, you want your mobile content in a more vertical format, minimizing overlooked information as well as the need for horizontal scrolling -- frustrations that tend to drive people off your site. Putting everything in more of a columnar format leaves users with the more natural task of scrolling down, rather than across.

Pare graphics

Specific capabilities for viewing graphics vary greatly from one handheld to another, with the iPhone leading the charge toward a whole new generation of graphics-friendly mobile devices. But even there, the largest screen size is just a few inches. Next generation devices may have 5-inch screens, but that's still pretty small. While there is no hard and fast limit on the graphics you can attempt to deliver, these days most optimization experts suggest you limit all images to no more than about 120x120 pixels.

RSS and .mobi

Enable RSS Feeds. RSS is designed to deliver the newest content on a site, stripped of graphical elements and other impediments to transmission. It's often the easiest and fastest way to send your content to handhelds. For some websites, enabling RSS may be all you need to do to convert your website for mobile users.

Consider whether or not to go ".mobi"

Companies looking to serve the mobile market should design a version of their sites for these devices, and many argue that implies switching to a ".mobi" domain name. The top-level domain ".mobi" was conceived and launched at a time when many felt the need to separate websites for mobile from standard websites. As a result, a lot of big name advertisers now support sites on the ".mobi" domain.

But with growing technological sophistication, others now argue that ".com" can serve just as well. For example, today it's possible for a server to do a browser detection every time a user hits it and then deliver an appropriate website for each class of device. For what it's worth, however, the W3C says that staying with ".com" for mobile sites breaks the web's convention because not all ".com" sites are suitable for handhelds.

As handhelds evolve from today's 2.5G and 3G into tomorrow's 4G technology, the gap between handheld and desktop user experiences will certainly narrow.

Navigation

Standard websites have evolved toward placing navigation along the top and sides. For mobile optimized websites, this just doesn't work. Mobile screens are so small that top navigation could easily cover much of the screen and force users to scroll before seeing the first elements of your site's content. It's counterintuitive, but in most situations mobile websites play better with navigation at the bottom of the page. This way, users see the vital content they want with the very first screen full of information. And because they are used to the idea of scrolling down to see more, scrolling to find the mobile site's navigation makes more sense than it does on a standard website. In many cases, that first screen can display a content menu with links to half-a-dozen sub-topics or categories of content that mobile users are likely to want.

Incidentally, users of the standard web are far more forgiving of "under construction" or "coming soon" signs than mobile users, who absolutely hate broken links. Even if you have plans to expand or modify your mobile website very soon, make sure everything you put up for mobile users actually works. Add any new or changed links into the site's navigation only after you flesh out their content.

It's also useful to include a "mobile site map" somewhere on your site. Having one from Google helps your ranking in Google's mobile directory, and it also helps Google keep up to date as you change your website's pages. With the link in place, Google will often register page changes in a couple of days rather than a couple of months. Similarly, Yahoo has a "yahoo mobile submit" page where you can register your site and help them track your mobile pages more closely.

Designers, testing and going local

Work with a mobile site designer. A substantial number of designers believe they can design and develop for any device. You'll hear arguments that it's unnecessary to develop an additional site for handhelds, and that it's better to come up with one site that displays nicely on desktops, laptops and handhelds. Sad to say, designers' beliefs are not always accurate. The limited capabilities of handhelds should not restrict what you do on other platforms. That's why, in many cases, it's more fruitful to have one designer creating your standard websites and another working off that design to optimize different coding for handhelds.

Test extensively before launching

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand that testing a site -- any site -- is very important. There are lots of testing services available, as mentioned on the next page. Point some of these tools at your mobile site and you'll quickly discover whether or not it meets all the applicable standards. It's also possible to use handheld emulators to make sure that pages load correctly on each of the devices you expect to be serving.

Plan to exploit localization

One of the most exciting aspects of the mobile web is its capability for localizing each user. Right now, Google Maps can pinpoint a user's location within about 2500 feet (the distance to the nearest cell tower), but GPS-enabled phones are far more accurate. Why not explore the best ways to leverage this technology? From a marketing perspective, localizing can be incredibly powerful because it allows you to compete for a person's business as they walk or drive down the street. The trick, of course, is to get people to opt in, so you have their permission to deliver localized offers to their phones.

Conclusions

As smartphones become more advanced, the need to optimize your websites specifically for mobile devices will become less and less critical. In the future, mobile users will be able to see the same websites as any other device. For now, however, failing to optimize for mobile users is a great way to hamstring your company's online efforts.

What's more, because cellphones often work when and where laptops do not (or are not available), the mobile web can provide an opportunity to offer content to customers and prospects when they are not willing or able to visit your standard website.

Fortunately, it's a lot easier to optimize for the mobile web than a lot of people believe it might be.

Years ago, advertisers were wondering if they should have a website. Now, of course, we all recognize that we need one. It's the same with mobile. Whether you build a new site or retrofit an old one to make it compatible, getting involved in the mobile web can benefit every advertiser. While many think the mobile web is a marketing tool for the future, others are discovering that it is here -- and viable -- right now.

Additional info

One simple and useful way to check the readiness of your website for mobile users is to submit it to the Ready.mobi testing tool. Free of charge, the site thoroughly evaluates any submitted site's mobile-readiness, based on industry standards and best practices. A free report on your site includes both a numerical score (from 1 to 5) and more detailed analysis of individual pages to help you gauge how well your site is likely to perform on most mobile devices. Recently, an upgraded version of this mobile website testing tool was launched, adding new mobile phone emulators, more reports with color-coded scores, and analysis of about three dozen website attributes.

http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/20542.asp

Texting days are over... (really?)

Here is a post from the NY Times about how apparantley texting is old skool and anyone who is somebody is streaming live videocasts from their mobile phones rather than taking the time to punch out and SMS.

“People have moved on from texting,” said Carla Thompson, senior analyst at the Guidewire Group, a marketing research firm in San Francisco. “Just typing in what you are doing is no longer enough. That’s why the field of live video streaming is burgeoning.”

Personally, i'll have to sit back and wait till i win the prize draw at my local RSL before i can afford a mobile with the technology that permits live streaming - many starting from about $400 to $895.

Something to keep in mind...

Cheers to IntoMobile for this post:http://www.intomobile.com/2008/09/10/touchscreens-getting-big-for-asian-market.html

Touchscreens getting big for Asian market

ABI Research’s latest report took a look at the growing popularity of touchscreen devices and what their future is looking like. Since 2006, shipments have nearly doubled, and forecasts are claiming a $5 billion market in 2009. As promising as that sounds, the increasing adoption differs widely according to geography. For example, Samsung and Motorola are rocking roughly a third of the touchscreen market each because they’ve effectively targeted Asia, which is ready to adopt something with easy character recognition. On the other side of the coin, BlackBerry’s had a rough time in Japan exactly because input is considerably trickier on a QWERTY device. The iPhone is obviously doing its fair share to improve the popularity of touchscreens and intuitive user interface is a big factor for shoppers, it’s still considered a niche compared to the big boys. I’m curious to see if the recently-scoped BlackBerry 9500 will suffer the same fate, or if it will have better luck with the mainstream…

Mobile phones to inform customers of what to eat at point of purchase

This could be interesting for Weight Watchers clients or potentially even on board a P&O Cruise, recommending appropriate cocktails for each part of the ship??? Thanks AFN for this food for thought.

Mobile phones to inform customers of what to eat at point of purchase

American-based WebDiet, Inc. has created a program which provides consumers with customised meal suggestions at the point of purchase based on the needs, wants and location of the customer. It is a new smartphone-based service to help people make smarter eating choices and improve their health, according to the creators. WebDiet is the first and only service to proactively send customers specific and dynamic meal suggestions, directly to their email and mobile devices immediately before time of purchase. Meal recommendations sent throughout the day are customised to users’ diet goals, based on what they’ve already eaten and their remaining calories for the day.

WebDiet utilises wireless, GPS and smartphone technologies, including iPhones, to bring WebDiet’s unique real-time Meal-by-Meal Guidance system to the palm of the consumer’s hand. To help attain weight and health goals, meal suggestions are sent directly before meal times based on personal settings and preferences, and can be custom-configured to support restricted calorie diets, low carb, low sodium, vegetarian, kosher and more diet choices.

“WebDiet gives consumers a smart and easy way to eat better, keep track of what they eat, and get healthy — even on the go — anytime, anywhere,” said Chris Shipley, executive producer of the DEMO Conferences. “Its innovative technology integrates wireless services, GPS, location-based services (LBS) and smartphones — and the company has a profitable business model that I had not seen in this category.”

The company believes the technology is vital to provide consumers with more information about what they should be eating at a time when obesity is on the rise.”Now with fast food popularity growing and our overweight and obesity epidemic on the rise in America, helping people to eat smarter is an urgent task,” said Craig Gold, CEO and co-founder of WebDiet, Inc. “Everyone knows our health depends largely on the choices we make in what we eat, and how much we eat. Research proves that keeping track of what we eat is the best method of losing weight. WebDiet not only makes keeping track easy to do, we go a step further, giving users dynamic real-time meal recommendations based on their daily intake requirements and diet goals.”
Users can select from restaurant and chain-specific meals, standardised meals available by food type and grocery stores, meals made at home, or from The WebDiet Collection(SM) of custom meal suggestions.

The collection of options offers thousands of meal ideas that can be made at home or custom ordered from many chain restaurant and fast food outlets, allowing users to eat at their local favourites while also helping them achieve their health and diet goals, the company suggests.

WebDiet has arranged deals with some food retailers to provide discounts and a linking of the technology with electronic ordering facilities of the retailer appears to be the next step.

Mobile technology is suddenly being linked with food retail around the world, with, for example, i-phones providing a program in the US which directs consumers to suitable nearby restaurants and mobile phones being tested to house credit card information to enable in-store purchases simply with a mobile phone.

See here http://www.ausfoodnews.com.au/2008/09/10/mobile-phones-to-inform-customers-of-what-to-eat-at-point-of-purchase.html for the original post.

KROGER GOES FOR MOBILE COUPONS

Thanks Branding Unbound

Score another supermarket for Cellfire.

Cincinnati-based Kroger, the nation's largest standalone grocery chain, will beging offering mobile coupons in markets, according to news reports.

Major consumer brands that will be offered via coupons include Clorox, General Mills, Unilever and many others.

"We're constantly seeking new innovations to provide our customers with more ways to save," Glynn Jenkins, the director of communications of the Atlanta Division of Kroger, tells the Nashville Business Journal.

It's the usual Cellfire deal - consumers sign up to receive coupons via mobile phones.

Personally, I'm not that into coupons - mobile or otherwise. Nothing to do with the technology. It's about the store. It's just that I expect to get an every day low price, not have to sign up for something to get it.

And I'm not clear on how this all gets marketed. I hope there's a Kroger-branded experience for its customers to sign up for the coupons, not some general "go to Cellfire.com" to sign up and then have to search for the stores they want to sign up for - which is how the Cellfire site seems to work.

And, as I've said before, I'm not big on apps you have to download in order to get, in this case, coupons.

However it works, Cellfire seems to be on a roll, and supermarkets seem to love 'em for it.

http://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/stories/2008/07/28/daily14.html

Ralph Lauren is first luxury retailer to launch mobile commerce

Every day brings a new technology and another brand that tries to get a head start by implementing it before the rest. Polo Ralph Lauren has become the first luxury retailer to launch mobile commerce. In Asia, it is common for people to buy products like Coke from vending machines through their mobile phones - that started as early as 2001.

What Polo Ralph Lauren is doing now, is aiming to attract business from the tech-savvy consumer in America by allowing them to buy products with codes that they intend to place in print ads, mailings and store windows, which will also be a feature of their sponsorship of the U.S Open later this month. Once users download the software to their phone, the codes can be scanned and they will be directed to a phone-friendly version of the Ralph Lauren site.

From Forbes, David Lauren, the Senior Vice-President of Advertising at the company and son of Ralph Lauren, said:

“We recognize that in America this is going after somebody who is more comfortable with technology. The truth is that in other countries, it’s becoming a part of their culture. The trend is coming, and as a fashion company it’s very important to identify trends and get ahead of them.”

Thanks to NGT and marktd for this post: http://www.marktd.com/2008/08/ralph-lauren-is-first-luxury-retailer-to-launch-mobile-commerce.html