U.S., Global Executives Disagree About Leadership in Mobile Payments

U.S executives and other global executives seem to disagree in some significant ways about the likely early winners in mobile payments.

Two groups of financial institutions are the current front-runners, say respondents surveyed as part of the 2011 KPMG Mobile Payments Outlook. That survey of nearly 1,000 executives primarily in the financial services, technology, telecommunications, and retail industries globally found that 83 percent of the respondents believe that mobile payments will be mainstream within four years (by 2015). In fact, 46 percent believe mobile payments will be mainstream within two years.

That is true both for U.S. and global executives. Banks, which scored the highest in level of importance in the value chain, and credit card companies (processing networks) will have the most important roles, according to business leaders globally.

But there the views diverge. Global executives placed telecommunications companies third, ahead of online payment leaders such as PayPal, Boku and Obopay, major application providers(Google, Facebook, Amazon), retailers and technology companies.

Among U.S. respondents, the application giants (such as Google, Facebook, Amazon), placed third, followed by specialist online payment players (PayPal, Boku and Obopay) and only then telecommunications companies, which were rated of equal importance, retailers and technology companies.

In other words, after Visa and MasterCard, and card-issuing banks, U.S. executives believe application providers such as Google will lead. Firms such as PayPal are seen as on a par with mobile service providers in likelihood to lead the market.

One can speculate about that difference of perspective, but it might be that U.S. contestants have a keener appreciation of the strengths the application giants and online payment players can bring to bear in the U.S. market, compared to most markets internationally, including developing nations and regions, where mobile service providers already have emerged as key players, working with the banks.

To reiterate, globally, executives tend to believe the banks and mobile service providers are most important. In the United States, respondents believe it is the banks and applications providers who are most important. That’s a significant difference in perspective.

But there also are several distinct market segments, and leadership in each segment is viewed differently. The KPMG survey respondents, globally, see online payment systems emerging early, as a mass market segment, in part because they already has done so.

Likewise, mobile banking as an early segment to emerge, again because there already has been substantial progress on this front. NFC-based payments are seen as taking longer to develop, as well as widespread carrier billing and the “mobile wallet.”

In regard to carrier billing, respondents probably are referring to widespread use of mobile phone bills as a payment mechanism, not the capability, which has been in place for quite some time.

Search Google Maps by Voice

Google's voice search algorithms are remarkably good, if you have used Google voice search on your Android. Now voice can be used for Google Map queries, from PCs running the Chrome browser.

If you’re using a Chrome web browser in the U.S. (English only for now), simply click the microphone icon and speak into your computer.

Search Google Maps by voice

Google+ Goes More Mainstream

Since the launch of Google Plus almost two months ago, Google’s social media network has grown faster than any other network, reaching over 20 million users in just a month. As you might expect, the early adopters skewed male, younger and techie.

That has begun to change as Google+ becomes a mainstream application. That would have been expected, especially since women tend to over-index on social networks.

A 2010 study by the Pew Research Center shows women are heavier users than men on most social media networks. In fact, the Pew Research Center found that from 2008 to 2010 the number of women using social media increased while the amount of men decreased.

The study also indicated women more frequently update statuses, comment on posts and photos, and are more apt to click Facebook’s “like” button. Women, simply put, are the backbone for most social media sites.

Google Plus adds more women after mostly-male launch | VentureBeat:

Shoe-Powered Mobiles?

Scientists say they can turn the kinetic energy of walking or running into electrical power. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin have invented a device that, placed in a shoe, captures the energy of moving microscopic liquid droplets and converts it into electrical current.

gadget in shoes could recharge batteries

How Extensive is UK 3G Coverage?

A study of 3G coverage in the United Kingdom, using 44,000 participants, suggests that 3G coverage in the UK is far below the 90 percent coverage claimed by operators.

The test used software on Android devices that measured 3G coverage wherever the phones were. The results found that a 3G connection was only possible for 75 per cent of the time, with dead-spots being recorded in U.K. cities and major towns.

Those findings are not going to surprise anybody who thinks for a minute about "coverage." Mobile service providers design their networks to reach areas based on rules of thumb. They don't actually go inside most buildings in an area to measure received signal. Nor can they physically measure signal in all shadow areas created by terrain, trees or buildings.

So when a mobile operator's coverage map shows an area is covered, that only means signal is adequate, "all other things being within design parameters." You might ask why operators don't simply "crank up the power."

In many cases, they cannot, as they have to comply with licensing requirements, though the bigger issue is network designs the require re-use of frequencies throughout the network. That means, essentially, that in order to avoid interference, towers using the same frequencies have to be located some distance apart from each other. To avoid interference, signal strength also has to be regulated.

Keep in mind that user demand directly affects network design. Areas with heavy usage, such as places major highways and freeways run, major pedestrian zones and so forth, require smaller cell coverage areas, which in turn affects signal strength parameters. If a service provider has to provider more smaller cells, power has to be reduced, compared with other lower-use areas where cells are bigger, and signals are stronger.

Signals strong enough to be usable at most locations within a cell tower's coverage area, but to avoid interference, might not be at a level that works quite so well inside some structures made of concrete or brick, for example. Coverage patterns that work one way in the winter might work differently in the summer, when trees are covered with leaves.

That is why, in some neighborhoods, you see your neighbors out on the front porch talking on their mobile devices.

The point is that it is not surprising that coverage patterns as measured by people who are indoors much of the time will discover lower signal strength than a radio engineer will design, and that on the ground testers, taking measurements largely outdoors, are going to report.

The point is that "coverage" is a bit of a statistical exercise, and that network engineers and users mostly indoors will experience coverage differently.

UK 3G coverage slammed by crowd-sourcing study

Changing Demographics of Tablet and eReader Owners

In the United States, as recently as the summer of 2010, tablet and eReader owners tended to be male and on the younger side. They were the classic "early adopters," in that sense. But the market is beginning to move beyond the early adopters.

According to Nielsen Company’s latest quarterly survey of mobile connected device owners, this is no longer  the case.

Older users and female users now are starting to adopt both e-readers and tablets at rates that are starting to better reflect their presence in the general population.

In some cases, usage matches, or exceeds, a group's presence in the overall population.

Back in the third quarter of  2010, for example, 62 percent of tablet owners were under the age of 34 and only 10 percent were over the age of 55. By the second quarter of  2011, only 46 percent of tablet owners were under the age of 34 and the percentage of those over 55 had increased to 19 percent.

Looking at the data by gender underlines key changes in the e-reader category as well Some 61 percent of all e-reader owners are now female, compared to 46 percent in the third quarter of 2010.

In the more established smart phone category, owners are now almost evenly split between male and female, though tablet ownership remain primarily male. But 37 percent of tablet owners are 45 or older, up from 23 percent in the third quarter of 2010.

In fact, the demographic pattern of ownership of tablets just about mirrors that of the more-established smartphone category.

And 51 percent of e-reader owners are 45 or older, up from 40 percent in the third quarter of 2010.

Changing Demographics of Tablet and eReader Owners

Will Apple Be a Force, Long Term?

There likely are few people who believe anything truly significant will change at Apple over the next couple to several years under Tim Cook, Apple's new CEO.

 Some might even think Apple wouldn't change much for as much as five more years. But, at some point, there likely are many people who think Apple simply will be unable to be the industry-changing force it now is.

Tim Cook is seen by many observers as a competent numbers guy who understands manufacturing. But nobody thinks he is a creative type. For the moment, Apple designers likewise seem capable of executing on Apple products.

At some point, though, nobody at Apple seems to have that particular Steve Jobs capacity for figuring out what consumers want, before they know they want it. To be fair, there is not another executive in the technology business with that instinct.

Most companies take surveys to figure out what people want. Apple doesn't do that, or at least, has not. There might not be another human being capable of making large bets, to create whole new industries, the way Steve Jobs has done. Sooner or later, Apple will cease to be the force it has been. That's how important a human being Steve Jobs has been.

What will Apple under CEO Tim Cook look like?