Top 10 Mobile Trends of 2010

Location, social and mobile commerce are among the top-10 mobile trends of 2010, says comScore. Location-based check-in services like Foursquare, Gowalla and Facebook Places have begun to gain consumer adoption. Other GPS-enabled apps like Google Maps and Garmin have also proved to be among the most popular and widely downloaded.

Social media also has become one of the most prevalent and fastest-growing activities on the mobile phone. In the United States the number of mobile social media users grew 56 percent to lead all content categories, and in the United Kingdom Facebook accounts for 40 percent of all time spent on mobile sites.

Mobile commerce, especially related to “mobile wallet” functions, also is among the top-10 trends.

Top 10 Mobile Trends of 2010: Highlights from comScore’s Mobile Year in Review (comScore Voices)

EBay Says Retailers Want PayPal for Mobile In-Store Payments

"Offline retailers are knocking on eBay Inc.’s door and asking its PayPal unit to provide an in-store payment alternative to credit cards and debit cards, the company’s chief executive said Wednesday.

CEO John Donahoe added that eBay is working to develop device-agnostic solutions that will enable consumers to pay for goods in stores using PayPal accounts linked to their cell phones, tablets or other mobile devices.

“Merchants are beating down the door saying: ‘We want to migrate customers to non-card solutions’,” said Donahoe during a question-and-answer session at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference in San Francisco."

PayPal has been offering some ways to make mobile payments since at least 2009.

EBay CEO John Donahoe Says Offline Merchants Interested in PayPal - Digits - WSJ

Antitrust Issues for Apple's Subscription Service?

The U.S. Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission apparently are looking at Apple's new subscription service as having potential antitrust issues, but the investigation is at an early stage, and might not develop into either a formal investigation or any action against the company, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Apple's terms for the new content subscription service require companies that sell digital subscriptions to content on Apple devices also make it available for sale at the company's iTunes App Store at the best available price.

Apple also would prohibit media companies' apps from linking to stores outside its App Store or from offering better terms to subscribers elsewhere, making it difficult for them to attract buyers to their own sites. Legal experts say some of those rules could pose antitrust problems.

Groupon Super Bowl Ads Don't Hurt Traffic

Traffic data from Hitwise suggests Groupon's Super Bowl ads have failed to hurt the group-buying platform in its battle with LivingSocial.

Groupon had been hemorrhaging traffic to LivingSocial for weeks leading up to the days before the Super Bowl. The Chicago-based group-buying platform lost nearly 23 percentage points of market share, while LivingSocial gained 14. Part of each brand's respective skid and rise had to do with LivingSocial's mid-January $20-for-$10 Amazon deal, which sold 1,301,296 vouchers.

But for the week ending Feb. 5, 2011Groupon grabbed back seven percentage points from LivingSocial. And while last week Groupon (7.7 million unique visitors) dipped by 1.5 percentage points as people complained about its TV spots, its Washington, DC-based competitor (1.9 million) experienced a similar slip.

Exclusive Data: Groupon Unscathed By Super Bowl Fallout | ClickZ

Clearwire Adds 1.4 Million Wholesale, 0.13 Million Retail Customers

Clearwire says it added 1.4 million wholesale customers in the latest quarter, and 126,000 retail customers. That should tell you much about why Sprint has argued Clearwire needs to finish building its network, not squander resources on its retail business. Assuming Clearwire and Sprint can end their dispute about revenues Sprint pays to Clearwire in areas where the 4G network is not even available, Clearwire might have a shot at boosting its gross revenue.

Clearwire eyes end to Sprint fight | Reuters

6% Annual Telecom Revenue Growth to 2014

The worldwide telecoms market will grow from $1.8 trillion in 2009 to $2.4 trillion in 2014, at a six-percent compound annual growth rate, says Analysys Mason.

Mobile data services will continue be the main engine of growth, offsetting the continued rapid decline of wireline voice revenues. Mobile voice revenue is forecast to grow at a six-percent CAGR, but the revenue from non-messaging data will grow at 21 percent, while messaging revenue will grow at 12 percent.

New business models based on mobile data are needed to drive growth worldwide

Durbin Amendment Hearing Appears to Lean Industry's Way

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act contains an amendment appended by
Senator Richard Durbin, D-IL that sharply limits the fees debit card issuers can charge to retailers for use of those cards. Some have estimated losses of about $12 billion annually to card issuers, with the logical consequence that those institutions will raise fees and charges for other services to recoup the lost revenue.

Senator Durbin’s language, in its final form, directs the Federal Reserve to issue rules limiting the revenue that large financial institutions can receive in connection with debit transactions and governing how debit transactions get routed from merchants to financial institutions and back again.

Although Senator Durbin managed to append his language to the Dodd-Frank Act without a single hearing, on Thursday, “Durbin” came up in hearings in both chambers of Congress. Some think the hearings are part of building pressure to limit the damage.

A Day Makes A Difference- “Durbin” The Day After