Dwolla Spots Supports Mobile Payments at Retail Locations

Dwolla "Spots" enables mobile payments for goods and services at retail locations using their mobile devices. Dwolla charges a flat transaction fee of 25 cents per transaction.

To pay a brick-and-mortar merchant, a Dwolla user selects the Spots tab from within Dwolla's mobile application, finds the business on a location-based map, and enters the transaction amount. The funds are sent immediately to the merchant.

Groupon: The Accidental Success

If you ever have been part of a start-up, you know that a successful business model sometimes just emerges in a way that was unforeseen in the original business plan. In Groupon's case, the successful model was something of a "Hail Mary" pass to save an original vision, an online fund-raising service, from collapse.

Groupon originally was founded as "The Point," an online fund-raising service that used the "tipping point" concept (donations had to reach a specified level before any of the donations were accepted). That now is the foundation for the group buying concept as well: offers aren't triggered unless there is a minimum take rate.

Groupon: the billion-dollar that company turned down Google

"Deal A Day" a $4 Billion Market in 2015?

BIA/Kelsey projects "deal-a-day offers" will grow  from $873 million in 2010 to $3.9 billion in 2015, representing a 35.1 percent compound annual growth rate.

But the firm also says the "deal a day" market could grow to as much as $6.1 billion by 2015 (47.4 percent CAGR), while a very conservative outlook pegs the space at $2.1 billion (19.7 percent CAGR).  read more here.

Of course, right now the industry itself has not reached consensus on what the new industry should be called, or which other existing markets it is part of. Group discount offers might be considered part of the local advertising business, the e-commerce business, mobile or online advertising or location based services, for example.

Hyper-Local Also Can Mean Hyper-Small

A new study by Borrell Associates suggests that "visitor" traffic to hyper-local mobile sites could be over-reported by a factor of four-to-one, if one assumes that the purpose of such hyper-local advertising is to reach people actually in a local area.

The big attraction to “local” comes from the fact that local websites hold more value because their site visitors make the vast majority household purchases within a few miles of their homes. The new study suggests the unique visitor-to-actual-people ratio is nearly 4 to 1. Audiences are being overstated, and some of those visitors aren’t even local.

Borrell Associates, Inc | How Unique is Unique?

http://www.borrellassociates.com/wordpress/2011/02/18/about-that-report-on-web-traffc/

Facebook Boosts Esteem, Study Says

3.4 Million Net New Broadband Adds in 2010

Spectrum is Real Estate

When it comes to mobile Internet, physics and practical engineering and usability requirements limits us to frequencies between 300 MHz and 3700 MHz.

Less than 300 MHz and the antennas needed are too big to carry, and even 300 MHz might be too big for a mobile phone and might only work in a tablet device or notebook computer.

 Higher than 2.5 GHz and it gets more difficult to get the signal to propagate.

Beyond that, virtually all spectrum available in the United States already has been designated for particular applications and particular users. Re-allocating spectrum always is a messy, expensive process. Existing users must be convinced to move, and typically have to be paid off. And the Federal Communications Commission is looking at a huge swath of new spectrum for mobile, ranging from 300 megaHertz to 500 MHz. Keep in mind that most currently active mobile networks use 10 MHz to 20 MHz in each direction.

Aside from the costs of reallocating spectrum, there is the additional matter of the amount of capital new owners will have to consider spending. In the long term, lots of new spectrum might be made available. In the short term, spectrum suitable for mobile use will continue to be quite scarce, and therefore valuable.

That doesn't mean spectrum owners automatically "win" when placing big bets on acquiring spectrum. In fact, lots of entrepreneurs have lost hundreds of millions on failed spectrum-related ventures, and others have narrowly escaped failure. At other times, the new industries or applications the spectrum is supposed to support simply fail to develop.

The blocks of spectrum now used to support Sprint and Clearwire 4G networks once were set aside for non-profit educational broadcasting, for example, then envisioned as the foundation of a fixed wireless TV delivery business, and finally wound up being used for mobile communications.

The big issue at the moment is reallocation of TV broadcasters from spectrum bands originally used for analog TV broadcasting, so the spectrum can be used for mobile services. But that involves such a huge block of spectrum that protracted sparring is inevitable.

Loopt Launches "Reward Alerts"

Loopt has introduced "Reward Alerts" into its mobile app for iPhone, iPod Touch and Android phones.

With Reward Alerts, brands and local businesses can offer limited-time and perishable-inventory deals to nearby consumers. Reward Alerts open up a unique mobile opportunity to offer a “flash” deal that is immediately redeemable in person, instead of a deal that is purchased now, but used at a future date.

http://about.loopt.com/press/

Thrutu Adds Location, Photo Sharing, Contact Info to Mobile Voice Calls

Thrutu, an Android app that allows callers to add location, photo sharing, contact information and a "Prod" function to mobile voice calls, now is available on the  Android Market. Thrutu also will be available  for iPhone and BlackBerry. 

Callers can now share digital information instantly, such as the ability to see each other's position updating live on a map, snap and share a photo, send contact information to the other caller's address book and "Prod" the other caller with remote phone vibration. 

"The phone call has not fundamentally changed in the last hundred years, yet we now use our phones to do all kinds of sophisticated things like text, email and interact on social networks," said Liz Rice, vice president, Thrutu. "With Thrutu we're truly changing the conversation, by bringing these activities into the actual phone call. 

In future releases, Thrutu users will be able to connect to their favorite social media channels, play games in mid-call,  plan events or coordinate social activities, share video in real-time and use a new range of "buttons" to enrich a conversation. 

Thrutu is available immediately on the Android 2.1 platform and accessible on mobile plans with simultaneous voice/data capability (AT&T and T-Mobile, in other words), or on Wi-Fi networks.

For more information go to www.thrutu.com, watch the Thrutu video on YouTube or download the app immediately in the Android Market.

Thrutu is a division of Metaswitch Networks. 

Bing Launches "Deals"

Bing deals for the desktop and mobile (m.bing.com) is launching, providing a group shopping and coupon capability representing more than 200,000 unique offers in over 14,000 cities and towns across the United States.  Bing deals assembles leading offers from Groupon, Living Social and Restaurant.com, making it easier to discover, share and search for the best deals in an area,  all from one place.

Bing  partnered with The Dealmap, to launch the service. 

<a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-us&amp;brand=msn%20video&amp;playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:2d427226-041b-40e8-ba91-5c1ae7a8130a&amp;showPlaylist=true&amp;from=bingblogplayer_en-us_bing&amp;fg=Bing_Marketing_player_bing_blog" target="_new" title="Bing Launches Deals">Video: Bing Launches Deals</a>

Western Union Launches Mobile Remittances

The Western Union Company has launched a new foreign-exchange payment service that will enable small and medium-sized business clients to make payments from their smartphones.

The new mobile-friendly payment service is now available in countries where Western Union currently offers online payment and foreign exchange services through its Business Solutions division, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France and Australia.

The new mobile service is designed for busy professionals and offers an intuitive interface for customers making international business payments. The service, which offers more than 140 currencies to choose from, allows users to make payments to suppliers in global markets anywhere, anytime, and lock in a currency-exchange rate and fee before transferring funds.

According to an IE Market Research Corp. report, mobile payments will reach one billion users and the $1 trillion transaction mark in the next five years.

Western Union - Investor Relations - News Release

Medialets Publishes In-App Rich Media Benchmarks

http://www.mobilemarketingwatch.com/medialets-publishes-in-app-rich-media-benchmarks-showing-impressive-performance-13549/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MobileMarketingWatch+%28Mobile+Marketing+Watch%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Apple iPad 2 Launches

Apple’s new iPad 2, is 33 percent thinner and up to 15 percent lighter than the original iPad, while maintaining the same 9.7-inch LED-backlit LCD screen.

The iPad 2 features Apple’s new dual-core A5 processor for faster performance and better graphics and now includes two cameras, a front-facing VGA camera for FaceTime and Photo Booth, and a rear-facing camera that captures 720p HD video.

Though it is thinner, lighter, faster and packed with new features, iPad 2 still delivers up to 10 hours of battery life.

The iPad 2 is available in black or white, features models that run on AT&T’s and Verizon’s 3G networks, and introduces the iPad 2 Smart Cover in a range of colors.

Mobile Marketing and Technology

Apple Has the Best Ecosystem

Aside from the fact that Apple has the best ecosystem, including the best-developed app store and a range of devices ranging from tablets to smartphones to Wi-Fi devices and MP-3 players, it also has the "image" factor going for it. People just think Apple devices are "cool."

Apple Now Has 200 Million iTunes Accounts

An interesting factoid from the iPad 2 launch event: Apple CEO Steve Jobs said 200 million people now have Apple ID (iTunes) accounts tied to credit cards.

"It’s very likely that this is the most accounts with cards anywhere on the Internet,” Jobs said. That could have implications for mobile payments, don't you think?

Apple Now Has 200 Million iTunes Accounts, Biggest Credit Card Hub On Web