UK Merchant Test Loyalty First, Payment Might Follow

In launching a trial of a loyalty program, "Eat," an Ireland-based sandwich chain, is following the Starbucks model of focusing on loyalty as the driver of it mobile payment application, rather than "payments." In fact, the program will launch with a focus on loyalty rewards first, and later might be expanded to include purchasing functions.

New point-of-sale terminals capable of supporting RFID and the stickers, as well as Visa payWave and MasterCard PayPass payment systems, are being added as part of the trial. Eat is said to be the first merchant in the United Kingdom to introduce an integrated contactless POS system. The trial will start in May 2011.

Eat would issue stickers affixed to mobile devices that enable them to tap to receive points and redeem rewards. They could also view coupons and rewards, along with account details via a smartphone app on their phones.

The test uses RFID stickers rather than near field communications, likely for a couple very-practical reasons. The number of NFC-capable phones in current use is too small to support a viable test, much less a full-production commercial system. Also, by using the stickers, Eat does not have to worry about all the details of phone type, make and model. In principle, the phone becomes a vehicle for attaching the sticker, which could in principle, be affixed to a credit, debit or loyalty card as well.

The trade-off is between speed to market and ubiquity versus application features. The advantage is that anybody will be able to use the stickers. The disadvantage is that the system is relatively "dumb," providing only as much information as any other numerical identification number would, at the the time of transaction. The sticker approach cannot take advantage of a smart phone camera, location information, processing power, memory or other apps that might increase the range of features a payment or loyalty program might offer.

But stickers have one key advantage: they are easy to use, and anybody can use them, without regard for the type of phone in use. In fact, a sticker approach is not much different from using a plastic fob or card of some type to enter loyalty information for any other existing retail program. Again, it's a trade off: a simple approach available to every customer, right now, versus a more-complicated technology approach that is more powerful in terms of new features.

UK Merchant Plans to Launch Loyalty Trial with Stickers

Mobile Payments: Not Really About the Payments

The thing about mobile payments is that application providers are going to have to figure out what the value for consumers and retailers is, and what the revenue models are. Managing spending could be one of those ways to add value. It isn't so much "electronic receipts" as it is the ability to post all transactions to a ledger or account, rather than adding up amounts manually, after the fact.

Automated check-ins and information sharing are another angle, possibly the ability to create a blog or social app post with some details (name, location, menu item) pulled directly from the transaction data and purchase location.

Purchases might also include automated tip calculation when restaurant bills are paid, using rules the user has set up in advance.

Many think retailers, banks and other loyalty programs will want to provide instant alerts for users to use specified accounts at specified retailer locations, possibly because the payment accounts are linked to loyalty programs at that specific location or a specific offer can be triggered.

Also, users might be able to link their loyalty program information with payment information so the loyalty information does not have to be separately entered every time.

The value might be the value add that is wrapped around "payment," rather than transactions themselves.

Why does NFC matter? Does tap beat swipe for mobile payments? | VentureBeat

47% of Mobile Users Get "News" on Their Mobiles

For that reason, some hope tablets will reinvigorate "print" media. source

Tablets Change Way People Consume Content

A new survey by Google suggests that tablets are changing the way that people consume content. That will be important for all existing or planned media channels and formats, as some people will soon start to argue that the tablet is becoming a new media hub. And where attention goes, so goes advertising revenue, for starters.

Tablets are changing the way consumers engage with content - Google Mobile Ads Blog

"Not Enough Time" Could Limit App Growth

At some point in any day, there is only so much available time. That could start to become a problem for social networks and applications that have heavy social features. In many cases, you might well assume that people will go where their friends already are, which technology is easiest to use, or which provides some new value.

Or course, the analytics for apps that manage to get attention provide the upside: a diary of habits, aspirations, preferences, interests, activities, locations and times of day when things happen. In some cases, apps might even know what people spend, and where.

The Harsh Reality About User-Gen Content: There Isn’t Enough To Go Around | paidContent

Beyong the "Information Age"

We're going to need a different way to understand the world we live in. It's a new "something," and "new information age" doesn't quite capture it.

Tpad SIP Calls Using Nokia and Wi-Fi

Free and low-cost calls from a Nokia handset, using a Wi-Fi connection using Tpad.com . Create a free Tpad (SIP) account and get a Internet telephone number and make free calls to other Tpad users.


Calls to landline number cost as little as one cent a minute. 





www.tpad.com

Mobile Collaboration Value Might Be Different From "Unified Communications"

A recent survey of enterprise mobile unified communications attitudes, by researchers at the Yankee Group, might suggest some of the ways "unified communications" has changed over the last several years. Prominent among the changes is a dramatically enhanced role for mobile conferencing.

In fact, Cisco has for some time been talking about "collaboration," not "unified communications." Instructively, the importance of "single number" features or a convergence of fixed phone system features and mobile access to those features does not seem to be so important.

In fact, one might argue that mobile collaboration is more about conferencing, social media and video than it is the traditional "phone system" features.

Is Amazon Entering the Display Ad Business?

In principle, there are few reasons Amazon might not want to become something more like an ad network than a shopping site. It has an enormous information technology infrastructure, including all of its cloud computing assets, and has not been shy in the past about developing retail businesses originally created to support its own internal operations.

Ben Schachter of Macquerie Research notes that Amazon is making investments to compete in the $30 billion online display advertising market, well beyond the existing business it runs by offering ads on its own site.

Is Amazon Entering the Display Ad Business?

Amazon Mobile Payments Illustrates Another Business Model

Amazon now is said to be considering getting into near field communications and mobile payments, possibly creating a service that would let shoppers pay for purchases at stores using their mobile phones. The potential move could illustrate one more way mobile payments could create a revenue stream and business model.

Some ventures, such as Isis, Intuit, Square and others, hope to profit from the transaction revenue, in large part. But Apple might be looking more at the loyalty angle, relying on mobile payments to create more stickiness and traction for its application business.

Google, as you might expect, is looking at additional ways to create a mobile-based advertising and promotion service revenue stream. Amazon might be looking for a way to create new opportunities to sell merchandise.

In one scenario, the mobile payment app also would allow a shopper to to find additional stock, including at Amazon if, for example, the store you’re in does not have your own size in stock. This would be done by tapping your phone against an item’s NFC tag to locate it on Amazon. That makes the mobile "payment" app more of a mobile "shopping" app.

With the likes of Google, Amazon, PayPal, Apple, Intuit, AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Starbucks, Visa, American Express Mastercard and major banks all circling around, you can be fairly certain something interesting will develop.

Amazon Exploring NFC Payments System

Social Shopping Raises New Tax, License, Fee Issues

It often isn't easy being a market disruptor. Incumbents--both in the marketplace and in the government and regulatory apparatus-- often can raise any number of obstacles to new ways of doing things. One of the perennial problems is simply how to apply existing law, developed in one context, to different practices in a new context.

That sort of problem is common in telecommunications, where regulators have to figure out what a "telephone call" is when it can be completed in other ways, using Internet apps such as instant messaging or other clients, for example.

Competitors have obvious incentives to argue for a "level playing field." But regulators and taxation authorities also care. If cable TV revenues fall, so do the fees that cable operators pay municipalities, for example.

Amazon and other online retailers have been fighting state efforts to tax their operations, and it is no secret that large brick-and-mortar retailers find this in their own interest, even as taxation authorities try to maximize revenue under new circumstances that do not fit the old models well.

Groupon, for example, offers limited-time, limited-volume deals. A particular offer might offer $20 worth of merchandise for $10, for example.  Groupon keeps half the revenue, the retailer gets the other half, without having spent any money up front, and the consumer gets a deal.

But regulators in Massachusetts argue that Groupon discount vouchers for alcohol violate liquor laws, and it is possible as many as 25 states will follow suit.
The legal issue is that regulators may decide that Groupon, which takes a cut of sales, has been selling alcohol without a license, fine it and perhaps force the company to get its own liquor license.

More likely--and as unappetizing for Groupon--its local business customers could face hefty fines or loss of their licenses. Groupon doesn't appear to be greatly concerned, insisting the laws don't apply to its business.

Another problem: who pays the sales tax, and in what amount? Is tax owed on the $10 a consumer paid, or on the $20 value?

read more about Groupon issues here

Verizon Wireless to eliminate one-year contract option on April 17th | BGR

Verizon Wireless is eliminating its one-year contract option. After April 17th, a customer purchasing a new device must either sign a two-year agreement and pay the standard advertised price, or pay the full cost of a handset. Some might see the move as "anti-consumer" in some way, but apparently few customers actually opt for a one-year contract when they can choose to pay full price for a handset, with no contract, or get a substantially-subsidized device with a two-year contract.

In the European Community, regulators recently have decided to require one-year contracts, and some mobile providers already have begun to do so, perhaps because of the competitive situation in the United Kingdom. Vodafone trails behind both the T-Mobile/Orange joint venture, Everything Everywhere, and O2, and has been seeing competition from MVNOs at the low end. Retailer Tesco has been offering 12-month deals, for example.

Vodafone's one-year contracts start at £35 a month and so far come with four high end handsets - the HTC Desire HD, RIM BlackBerry Torch, Samsung/Google Nexus S, and the Nokia N8. Other models will also be included in the scheme as it evolves. Vodafone has had12-month terms for SIM-only contracts for some time.

There's no magic here. Consumers can pay full price for their devices and buy service with no contract. But most consumers want subsidized phones, and the two-year contract terms are set at levels that arguably simply recoup the cost of the subsidies. The one-year plans obviously represent less generous subsidies.

Market dynamics also are different in the EC nations and in the U.S. market. In the EC, virtually all providers use a single air interface, so a phone purchased for service with one carrier can be shifted easily to another carrier. In the U.S. market, the air interfaces remain split. A CDMA phone that works on Verizon or Sprint networks will not work on AT&T or T-Mobile networks. For that reason alone there is less opportunity to switch providers.

Still, the point is that no-contract service, one-year or two-year contract plans simply represent different combinations of value and price.

Verizon Wireless to eliminate one-year contract option

Jumio Seeks "End of Cash"

Jumio The End of Cash from Jumio Inc. on Vimeo.
Facebook co-founder and Jajah co-founder are backers.

Why Coupons Are Interesting to Mobile and Social Advertisers

Consumer product goods marketers allocated the largest share of their coupon distribution to free standing inserts during 2010, according to a new study from NCH Marketing. FSIs accounted for roughly 88 percent of CPG coupons in 2010, with all other forms of media comprising the remaining 12 percent.

The amount of that activity probably explains the new interest in distributing some coupons by mobile devices, where the shopper's context and preferences can, in principle, be used to target the messages. 

In-store handouts represented five percent of coupons, followed by direct mail (2.4 percent), magazine (2.2 percent), other (including all digital formats – two percent), and in/on-pack and cross-ruff (one percent).

While distribution demographics for grocery CPG coupons were similar to overall results, a slightly higher percentage (13.2%, or 7% more) were distributed by non-FSI means. The largest difference in the breakdown of non-FSI coupon media was an 11.5% higher percentage distributed via in-store handouts (5.8%).

The average face value of a CPG coupon in 2010 was $1.46, up 6.6% from $1.37 in 2009. Average CPG coupon face value has risen year-over-year each year since 2006, when it stood at $1.18. Between 2006 and 2010, average value rose almost 24%.

Read more here

YouTube is going "Live"

"YouTube Live" now has begun to roll out in beta (of course), integrating live streaming capabilities and discovery tools directly into the YouTube platform for the first time. The YouTube Live browse page (www.youtube.com/live) will attempt to feature "the most compelling live events happening on YouTube" and add events to user calendars.

The beta allows certain YouTube partners with accounts in good standing to stream live content on YouTube.

YouTube Blog: YouTube is going LIVE