Nearly 11 Percent of US Houses Empty

Of the nearly 131 million housing units in this country, 112.5 million are occupied. There were 18.4 million vacant homes in the United States in the fourth quarter of 2010, 11 percent of all housing units vacant all year round.

That is bound to have a depressing effect on all services and products sold to "home dwellers," ranging from fixed-line voice and entertainment video to home furnishings, household goods, remodeling and so forth.

Home Ownership—Nearly 11 Percent of US Houses Empty - CNBC

Brands See Mobile Social Channels Growing in Importance

U.S. marketers surveyed by PRWeek and MS&L Group believed mobile social would have important consequences for their brand.

Asked which social media efforts would have the greatest effect on their company, 17 percent said more usage of social media on mobile platforms and a further 12 percent cited uptake of mobile location-based social networking.

The Influence of Mobile on Social Marketing’s Future - eMarketer

Tablets Driving Higher Interest in Video Advertising

Bigger screens on tablets seem to be driving consumer interest in video-based advertising, a Nielsen report suggests.

Nielsen’s research among connected device owners suggests that iPad owners are more receptive to ads than other mobile device owners, particularly when the ads contain video and other interactive features.

These findings square with the general purpose of the device. After all, the iPad shines when it comes to video and multi-media consumption.

What the Tron iAd Means for the Future of Tablet Advertising

"Financial Reforms" Lead to More Unbanked Americans

All well-intentioned bits of regulation have unintended consequences. Some of those consequences are foreseeable, in fact. Consumer protection legislation provides a good example. "The number of Americans who have bank accounts is likely to drop in the coming months as financial institutions seek to make up the costs of additional regulation with greater fees," says the Credit Union Times.

In response to new limits on fees, banks are setting new minimum balance requirements in order to avoid paying fees for checking services, while others have begun charging fees for debit cards and debit card use.

All financial institutions have faced increased regulations, but financial institutions with more than $10 billion in assets also face a cap on their debit card interchange which has been proposed as low as 12 cents per transaction. That is going to slice the profitability of the credit card business, and in some cases could put issuers under water, says Philip Philiou, partner at Selwanes Philliou.

The unintended consequence is a likely increase in the number of U.S. citizens and residents who do not use bank accounts. Ironically, that is going to increase the opportunity for mobile payment and money transfer services that do not require linking mobile payments to credit or debit accounts or checking accounts.

Interchange Cap Likely Leading To More Unbanked Americans

Remote Deposit for Mobile Banking: Potential "Killer" App

You might have encountered remote deposit capture at an automated teller machine, where the ATM scans a check, or takes a picture of the front and back of a check, and sends it into the cloud for deposit, giving you a copy of the photo? Some think that sort of feature, available on a mobile phone, could be a "killer" app for mobile banking, which today in the U.S. market mostly offers ability to check balances and conduct other simple operations from a mobile device.

But what if banking services also included the ability to snap a picture of a check, send it into the cloud, determine validity of check and get instant funds deposited to a mobile account. That might not be so valuable in the U.S. market, but could be quite useful in many parts of the world where the banking system is undeveloped.

Is Remote Deposit Capture the Killer App for Mobile?

All the Super Bowl Commercials in One Place

I admit, I liked "Carma" and the Volkswagen ads.....

Sony Ericsson Experia Pllay: First "Gaming Phone

Smartphones have proven to be popular casual gaming devices. So Sony Ericsson's new Experia Play is the first serious attempt to design a smartphone with gaming as a lead experience, much as BlackBerries had email as a lead experience, and some other devices are designed to lead with social media, Facebook access or navigation.

Motorola Xoom Tablet Super Bowl Ad

The Motorola Xoom ad obviously is a take on the famous 1984 Apple ad, aired at a time when Apple, struggling against Microsoft, wanted to emphasize its "be different" ethos.

Here's the Apple ad, for comparison. Oddly enough, it now is Apple that is the tablet "incumbent", Apple that is taking some heat for curation of the end user experience. Android devices such as Xoom that are more "open."

Groupon Super Bowl Ad

Save the rainforest.....

New 7-Inch iPad?

Despite dismissals of seven-inch tablets by Apple executives, Apple might be working on a seven-inch model. To some extent, that dismissive attitude can be chalked up to corporate sparring with competitors that have elected to come to market with devices using that form factor, when Apple is selling only 10-inch models.

New iPad details: RFID/NFC add-ons, carbon body, 7” iPad still in works

Skype Sees Cloud Services Revenue Opportunity

Skype will be making a big move to the cloud in 2011. Skype’s cloud products will vary, from a plug-in to the ability for developers and advertisers to embed click-to call ads using Skype’s technology.

Specifically, click-to-call advertising on the web is a way for Skype to bring in revenue, the company believes. Another potential revenue model is to work with carriers to include Skype’s mobile services as part of a consumer’s phone bill.

Skype’s VP Of Consumer Products On Mobile Video; The Cloud And Monetization

TD Bank Launches Mobile Banking App for BlackBerry Devices

TD Bank has launched its banking app for BlackBerry devices. With the TD Bank mobile app, BlackBerry users can:
Check deposit, loan and credit card balances
Transfer funds
Make bill payments
Find local branch and ATM locations
View pending transactions and account history
Enroll in TD Debit Card Advance
Use the easy one-click option to call TD Bank’s 24/7 live customer service center

TD Bank Launches Mobile Banking App for BlackBerry Devices

Smartphones More Effective for Ad Campaigns

Compared to feature phone users, smartphone users are most impacted by mobile campaigns, according to Millennial Media.

Direct comparisons show that smartphones are an especially superior vehicle for advertising compared to feature phones in the area of mobile ad awareness, or capturing customer attention. Smartphone campaigns have 39 percent effectiveness in this area, about 39 percent more than the 28 percent effectiveness of feature phones.

In addition, smartphones are 30 percent more effective than feature phones in the area of unaided awareness (17 percent compared to 13 percent), and 25 percent more effective in purchase intent (15 percent compared to 12 percent).

Smartphones More Effective for Ad Campaigns

45% of Middle East, North Africa Mobile Customers Use Mobile Web

Some 45 percent of Internet users taking part in a mobile usage survey across the Middle East and North Africa told Spot On PR that they used their mobile phones to access the Internet. Of those, 85 percent stated that they have downloaded applications for their mobile phones, while 27 percent claimed to download more than one mobile app per week. About 20 percent of mobile Internet users also claimed to have paid money for a mobile application download.

About 45 percent of respondents use their mobile phones to access the Internet, rising to 50 percent among Internet users in the United Arab Emirates. Fully 71 percent rank email as biggest mobile data activity. Other popular activities on the mobile Internet were social networking (34 percent), news & weather (29 percent), sports news (29 percent) and hobbies (25 percent).

 Read more here

Indian Bank Launches Mobile Banking

The Karur-based Lakshmi Vilas Bank has launched a real-time fund transfer facility using mobile phones. LVB is the first private sector bank in South India to offer this facility, Managing Director and CEO P R Somasundaram says.

LVB customers can register with their nearest branch.

Lakshmi Vilas Bank launches Interbank Mobile Payment Service

Airtel Introduces Cash Payment by Mobile

India's largest mobile operator, Bharti Airtel, is offering its customers the ability to make payments through mobile phones.

Bharti Airtel customers can deposit cash in their "airtel money" accounts at retail locations, then make payments at retail sites and pay utilities using their mobile phones. The merchants and utilities have to be on the Bharti Airtel network, and be part of the money transfer program.

The feature is as much about customer loyalty and value-added services as it is about incremental revenue Airtel can make by sponsoring the program.

India’s Airtel Introduces Cash Payment by Mobile Phone

“PayNearMe” at 6,000 7-Eleven Stores, Supports Mobile Money Transfer and Payments

PayNearMe offers a take on mobile payments that is more a “virtual cash” play than anything else, likely to be most successful with consumers who prefer paying cash to third parties, especially when buying online digital goods or make other payments, and do not own or cannot get, credit or debit cards. That could include teenagers and others. See http://www.paynearme.com/press_releases/press_release_11_16_10_B


Using only their mobile phones and the new, free PayNearMe Card, consumers can complete transactions with a growing list of payees, including Amazon.com and Facebook, Progreso Financiero, MOL AccessPortal (MOL), m-Via, Lexicon Marketing, LLC, Adknowledge’s Super Rewards, Money to Go and SteelSeries.

More than 50 percent of U.S. adults prefer cash for payment and a quarter of U.S. households lack credit or debit cards. That creates the opportunity for secure and convenient ways to complete remote transactions with cash.


The PayNearMe card is one such solution. When buying something on online site SteelSeries, for example, the consumer would go through the regular check-out process, but instead of clicking Visa or MasterCard, they would choose PayNearMe.  See http://emoney.allthingsd.com/20101223/how-one-company-wants-to-make-cash-cool-again/?mod=ATD_skybox


Then he or she would print out a barcode and bring it to any 7-Eleven location. The clerk scans the barcode and collects the cash. As soon as the balance is paid, SteelSeries will be notified and the item will be shipped.

If a user does not have a printer, or is making a money transfer, users go to a 7-Eleven where plastic PayNearMe cards–similar to gift cards–are available.


They call customer service and say the code on the back of the card, how much money they’d like to transfer and where they’d like to transfer it. The 7-Eleven clerk then scans the card, collects the cash and prints out a receipt with all the legally required information.


Unlike gift or prepaid cards, PayNearMe Cards simply enable mobile cash payments in any amount from $.01 to $1,000. There’s no stored value, no hidden fees, no unused balances.


In some ways, PayNearMe is sort of a mobile “money transfer” service, in part a micro-payments service.

Starbucks Mobile Payment Demonstration

The Starbucks mobile payment system might accurately be described as consumer experience and loyalty program, more than a technology breakthrough. It uses a minimum of new in-store or consumer technology and an initially-simple way of replacing a credit card swipe with a bar code reading.

 The 2D barcode in the Starbucks Mobile Card app, which is no longer a QR code in the latest version, currently appears to encode only the card account number, effectively acting as a replacement for the magnetic stripe, notes FaceCash CEO Aaron Greenspan.

"Right now from the POS viewpoint only encoding the account number works well because it doesn't require any additional POS customization," says Greenspan. The advantage is speed: the transaction is fast because it's treated effectively the same as a card swipe, which is already pretty fast.

Global Tablet Shipments to Grow 12x by 2015

Global shipments of tablets will grow to 242.3 million units in 2015, up by a factor of more than 12 from 2010, a new IHS iSuppli report says.

Media tablet shipments will grow to more than 202 million units in 2015, up from 17.4 million in 2010. Shipments of PC-type tablets—i.e., tablets that have full PC functionality implemented via PC operating systems—will climb to 39.3 million units in 2015, up from 2.3 million in 2010.

Total shipments of tablets will amount to 242.3 million units in 2015, up from the newly finalized IHS iSuppli estimate of 19.7 million in 2010.

Global Tablet Shipments to Rise by Factor of 12 by 2015

"Do Not Track" Implications

To be sure, a web version of the "do not call" list " is likely to get fairly broad consumer support. But "do not track," which will allow consumers to block detection of their website visits. Like many regulations, the notion is logical, but will have unintended consequences. For developers, application providers and many content sites, it means a more difficult revenue-generating challenge, since behavioral targeting would be impossible for the percentage of web users who opted into the the "do not track" program.

Some consumers will appreciate the privacy, of course. But the trade-off will likely be exposure to non-targeted or poorly targeted advertising, rather than ads that more-closely align with each consumer's actual interests and needs.

A "Do Not Track" law would also make it difficult for agencies to accurately report return-on-investment to clients, others will note.

The same sort of conundrum occurs because of network neutrality rules that forbid packet priorities for consumer broadband access services. While some will point to the competition-enhancing aspect (applications and services owned by ISPs cannot be favored over independent apps and services of the same type), there is a trade-off. Consumers cannot set their own priorities for apps and services.

Though it is possible to design an access service to give top priority for bandwidth, and other performance-enhancing measures, to apps the consumer designates as "the most important right now," network neutrality rules allow businesses, but not consumers, to make such stipulations.

A consumer might like to create and enforce rules that give top priority to VoIP sessions and videoconferencing. during business hours. During evenings, those settings might switch to give entertainment video top priority. Software updates might always be given the lowest priority, with email and web surfing in between.

"Do not track" rules are likely to have the same sort of predictable consequences. Some apps and features of value to consumers will be sacrificed. And there will be some negative consequences for some in the content delivery ecosystem, as well.

An ad roadblock at the browser - Crain's New York Business: