Thursday, February 17, 2011

Google Search Gets More Social

Google is changing its search results algorithms to return more "social" results. To that end, Google will add new emphasis on results created by people that are a part of one's social networks.

Social search results will now be mixed throughout results based on their relevance (in the past they only appeared at the bottom). This means you’ll start seeing more from people like co-workers and friends, with annotations below the results they’ve shared or created.

"Last Year was Boring; Not 2011" at Mobile World Congress

Lots of new technology, devices and networks are part of the reason.

Debit Card Rule Will Harm Community Bank Customers

People who use debit cards issued by community banks will face higher costs and increased restrictions if a proposed Federal Reserve regulation goes into effect, according to a new survey of members of the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA).

The proposed Federal Reserve rule would implement the Durbin amendment of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. That amendment limits interchange fees to the tune of about $12 billion a year.

That means issuers will raise other fees, and impose new charges, to recoup the losses. An end to "free checking" is among the likely changes.



Survey: Fed Debit Card Rule Will Harm Community Bank Customers - pymnts.com

Are Handset Vendors Service Providers?

There used to be a clear division of labor in the mobile business. Handset vendors and device manufacturers focused on designing the best possible hardware, using specifications provided by the mobile network operators. More recently, software has emerged as a key differentiator. But the "service" was provided by the mobile operator.

But all that is changing. Handset vendors are trying to shift in the direction of providing an "experience" for their end users that necessarily has handsets providing some "services."

Think about Apple iTunes, App Store, MobileMe, iAd and FaceTime. All are services provided directly by Apple to end users, irrespective of network.

If you are thinking there is an inevitable shift of value and revenue towards the "over the top" services and apps delivered over broadband access services, you are right. That's what a loosely-coupled network, such as the Internet, implies. That is not to say fixed or mobile operators do not have a role in the value chain. They always will. The inevitable point, though, is that there is no reason why most of the newly-created value will remain in the "access" part of the ecosystem.

Mobile operators will have an easier time of this than fixed operators, but no access provider can hope to capture much more than a fraction of the new value and revenue created by application providers. That's what "layers" mean. Applications do not have to know much about the physical layer to "work." Nor will future application provider business models need to "know" much about the physical and lower layers of the software stack.

In the evolving ecosystem, even devices will become application providers.

Are Handset Vendors About to Become Service Providers? | VoIP SurvivorVoIP Survivor

Smartphones are Top U.S. Consumer Electronics Items in 2011

Consumers in the United States are more likely to buy a smartphone in 2011 than PCs, mobile phones, e-readers, media tablets and gaming products, according to a recent survey by Gartner.

U.S. smartphone sales are expected to grow from 67 million units in 2010 to 95 million units in 2011. By comparison, mobile PC shipments are forecast to total 50.9 million in the United States. in 2011, up from 45.6 million from 2010.

How Twitter Pitches Potential Advertisers

"Social" Business Invoicing Using PayPal

Tradeshift declares invoicing social from venturecup.tv on Vimeo.

It's part of the broader trend of experimentation with mobile remittances, mobile payments, mobile banking, online payment, online banking, online money transfer and shopping.

The Roots of our Discontent

Political disagreements these days seem particularly intractable for all sorts of reasons, but among them are radically conflicting ideas ab...