Visa Likes Square

Square allows small merchants, who have traditionally been limited by paper-based payments, to accept electronic payments through a credit card reader that plugs into a phone or iPad. "This is a big deal and will help the entire payments industry’s efforts in bringing access to electronic payments to a segment that has historically not been easy to serve, namely very small merchants," Visa says.

Before, these very small merchants depended solely on the limits of cash transactions, Visa says. Now with Square’s product, these small merchants can use a mobile device as a gateway, making a transaction over Visa’s global network and gaining the security, speed and reliability that come with it.

Emerging Payment Types = New Opportunities | Visa’s Blog – Visa Viewpoints

Smartphones Increasing Call Center Volumes

More than 60 percent of 55 service providers polled by Heavy Reading believe that the volume of smartphone-related support calls has increased 10 percent to more than 25 percent over the last two years. The same percentage believe the average cost of supporting smartphones is anywhere from 10 to 50 percent above that of standard feature phones, due in part to longer call-handling times. Additionally, more than half of the incoming calls are not resolved by the initial call center representative who handles the call - further driving up costs.

Some 75 percent of service providers surveyed are looking to advanced services to increase data usage and realize additional sources of revenue from smartphone customers. But the research shows that over two thirds of customers do not use advanced services, due to lack of awareness or understanding.

Operators Want Higher Smartphone Revenues, But Need to Educate Customers on Using Advanced Features

FCC Chairman Says Net Neutrality Rules Don't Cover Comcast-Level 3 Dispute

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski said the agency's net neutrality rules don't cover interconnection disputes such as the current dispute between Comcast Corp. and Level 3 Communications.

He called the Comcast-Level 3 issue a private business dispute and said he hoped the two companies could work out their differences.

Long-time observers of the interconnection business and framework will not be surprised by those views. Carrier interconnection is about the business relationship between network owners, not end user services.

WSJ: FCC Chairman: Net Neutrality Rules Don't Cover Comcast-Level 3 Dispute - WSJ.com (subscription required)

Google One Pass Enables Content Micropayments

Google One Pass is a payment system that enables publishers to charge consumers for articles and other content. It offers purchase-once, view-anywhere functionality, so users can view the content they buy across all of their devices.

Google One Pass supports subscriptions, day passes, metered access, pay-per-article and multi-issue packages.

Google One Pass

RIM, Telefonica to Support Carrier Billing for BlackBerry App World

Research In Motion and Telefonica are working together to introduce "BlackBerry App World" with integrated carrier billing, on a global basis.

Carrier billing will allow Telefonica customers to purchase apps from BlackBerry App World and charge the purchases directly to their monthly bill. Customers will also be offered the flexibility of charging in-app purchases to their carrier bill which allows for the purchase of digital goods to be made without interrupting their application experience.

BlackBerry - Press Releases

YouTube The Next Netflix?

Google believes that YouTube’s future is to market premium content and streaming services to its hundreds of millions of users. Google has figured out that advertising-supported content cannot make YouTube profitable. It needs another revenue source, and subscriptions for premium content access are the likely and logical choice.

YouTube–The Next Netflix - 24/7 Wall St

Eric Schmidt: Ice Cream Will Finally Merge Android Gingerbread and Honeycomb

Today, Android smartphones run one operating system, while some tablets run a different version known as Honeycomb. If you wonder whether a common version is coming, you would likely be correct, allowing Android to build a more-integrated ecosystem that could have Android smartphones and tablets working together, sharing applications more elegantly and possibly, in some implementations, raising new issues about the "one device" a user finds most useful to carry around.

"We have OS called gingerbread for phones, we have an OS being previewed now for tablets called Honeycomb," notes Google CEO Eric Schmidt. "The two of them, you can imagine the follow up will start with an I, be named after dessert, and will combine these two.”

Eric Schmidt: Ice Cream Will Finally Merge Android Gingerbread and Honeycomb

RIM Playbook Tablet

Research in Motion goes with a seven-inch form factor for Playbook tablet.

Mobile Will be a Powerful Ad Medium, But Agencies Will Struggle With Apps

WPP chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell predicts it will be difficult for advertising agencies and other companies to profit from apps, though mobile will become a powerful advertising medium.

Though the app market has tripled in size to $15 billion, the advertising industry overall is about a trillion dollar industry, he notes.



Asked how the ad industry can make the most of the boom in apps, he was cautious. "I think the real answer is 'with difficulty' because it's not dissimilar to what you're seeing with newspaper and periodicals."

The amounts of income are becoming more significant but are highly fragmented, he said. "You have a vast array of applications and a vast array of designs and consumer loyalty is quite fickle ... It's very volatile."

VIDEO: Sorrell on apps, mobile and social networks

What is a Facebook Phone?

Two upcoming Android devices from INQ, the Cloud Touch and Cloud Q, feature new Facebook integrations with single sign-on and easy one-touch access to popular Facebook features. The home screen features a user's "News Feed" (including your friends' updates, pictures, videos and links) and quick links to Chat, Messages, Places, notifications and more. Users also can also check in to your favorite shops and businesses with Facebook Places, right from the home screen.

HTC's ChaCha and Salsa phones feature a dedicated Facebook button that gives you one-touch access to a user's favorite Facebook functions, allowing users to update your status, upload a photo, share a news article and check in to places. Facebook Chat, Messages and your friends are also integrated, so when a user makse a phone call, the screen displays the user's friends' status updates and photos, and birthdays.

With enough customization and personalization, a multi-purpose smartphone can be transformed into a device with unique characteristics and value for users, even when built on a standard hardware platform. If you wonder how a differentiated communications experience can be built, this is one example.

A Better Mobile Experience

Google CEO Eric Schmidt Speaks at Mobile World Congress

How Telefonica Deals with Mobile Data Challenges

"White board" App for iPhone

Mobile Payments Business Models: Attackers Face Hard Choices

One way of looking at the business potential for mobile payments is to look at the volume of retail payments, the volume of credit card or debit card payments, and then estimate how much of those activity streams could shift in new ways. In the U.S. market, as compared with some others, the analysis is a bit more tricky.

For starters, the payments process is well developed and efficient. But the latest wrinkle is that the actual payments processing business associated with bank cards bearing the "Visa" and "MasterCard" labels is itself in serious danger of massive shrinkage, by reason of new banking regulations that dramatically cap fees. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodd%E2%80%93Frank_Wall_Street_Reform_and_Consumer_Protection_Act or http://www.cutimes.com/News/2011/2/Pages/DoddFrank-Regulatory-Overhaul-Likely-To-Get-Tweaked.aspx.

Deutsche Telekom CTO Ed Kozel says the business model is still in its formative stages, especially in the United States. "Nobody knows what the final version will look like; everybody is still experimenting with their business model," Kozel said. "Will it look like Visa or something else?"

So here's the big and immediate rub: in a payments ecosystem that is efficient, adding one more player either reduces the overall industry revenue, or raises costs to retail partners. On the other hand, if a new player tries to create a new system, displacing or eliminating some participants, there is the obvious problem of determined opposition from the existing players that are threatened.

The former strategy, though arguably prudent, makes it harder to add value to the new experience. The latter strategy means a protracted fight with stubborn foes already facing revenue pressure. Also, if some sort of accommodation with the existing order is the approach, then all the existing players are threatened if a rival and replacement system gets traction. That threat is most obvious for relatively restricted payments using Apple's iTunes or PayPal, for example. But there always is the "threat" that a niche process can improve to the point where it can become a viable substitute for the existing "card-based" system. especially if tightly and elegantly integrated with the mobile device.

Mobile Payments in US Mired in Fight for Control - PCWorld

RealNetworks Business Model Has Changed

Most of its business now comes as an application enabler, largely for mobile service providers.