Mobile Payments an Enabler

It is possible there are some potential entities that really see an opportunity to create a new transaction processing (settlements) system to challenge today's settlement networks. That's an ambitious and risky sort of thought, but a thought we suspect most innovators do not harbor. Instead, there are lots of other businesses that can build on mobile payments, without trying to displace existing networks.

Square already has succeeded in adding value on the terminal end of the ecosystem, essentially extending point of sale terminal capabilities to retailers that could not afford it before.

Google is aiming at the other obvious big target: advertising. The coming Google Wallet would allow Google to offer retailers more data about their customers and help them target ads and discount offers at mobile-device users near their stores.

Appending real-world purchase information to its treasure trove of online behavioral data would allow Google to drive significant transactional and advertising revenues.

Mobile Payments Enter A Disruptive Phase

Mobile money coming to Ethiopia

Irish firm M-Birr, in partnership with Mukuru.com and M-Birr parent firm NCL Technologies, will roll out mobile money services in Ethiopia soon, through M-Birr’s subsidiary in Ethiopia, M-Birr ICT Services Plc.

Mobile money coming to Ethiopia

Different Paths to Mobile Payments

There are many different angles to take in the mobile payments, mobile wallet and mobile money transfer segments of the mobile banking market. They are, in fact, often functionally distinct businesses.

All of them share one thing: the use of mobile devices to exchange money. But that’s just about where the similarities end. Here are a couple different services seeking roles in distinct parts of the larger ecosystem. Square already has found a viable niche as a mobile terminal for retailers who want to take card payments, but either cannot afford, or cannot use, a traditional point of sale terminal. That's one of the "device-driven service businesses" we already have seen emerge.

Then there are the peer-to-peer money transfer services, which are quite distinct. Think a mobile version of Western Union's funds transfer system. M-Pesa is a good example of that.

Google is chasing the mobile credentials or mobile wallet segment of the market. But lots of other segments and roles will emerge over time. Think of what was thought possible when Netscape first launched around 1995. Then think of all the things people can do using browsers today. Something similar will happens with the mobile payments, banking, wallet platforms as well.

4 very different mobile payment services

CBO Analysis Shows a Spending Problem

The Congressional Budget Office, recently released a review [here] of the budget estimate they issued in January 2001 and the factors that turned their $5.6 trillion surplus projection into $6.2 trillion in cummulative deficits by 2011.

The pie chart below breaks down the major components of the $11.8 trillion swing from surpluses to deficits over the ten year period 2002 to 2011. Higher spending turns out to be the largest factor erasing those surplus projections, comprising 44 percent of the ten-year swing.

The Tax Foundation - CBO Figures Dispel Myth that Bush Tax Cuts Caused Today's Deficit

Social Shopping Aggregates Buyers

Social couponing, or social shopping, sometimes called "deal of the day," is becoming a serious business, but it also is easy to dismiss. It's just coupons, right? Maybe not. The coupon is the tactic used to aggregate buyers. It is a rival channel to alternative coupon channels and other forms of local advertising and promotion.

The group-buying industry is expected to grow 138 percent to $2.66 billion in 2011. The business is highly fragmented at the moment, with some estimating there are about 439 daily deal email programs serving the U.S. market in the first quarter of 2011.

Nor is social shopping just a nice or interesting stand-alone business. Many believe it will increasingly be integrated with mobile payments, mobile loyalty mechanisms and other targeted forms of advertising and promotion.

Beyond Groupon: 5 market-moving trends in social couponing (single page view) - iMediaConnection.com

Secrets of Social Media: It's High School

"Everything you know about social media you probably learned in high school," argues Bill Murtha, President and CEO of Roberts Communications. "In high school, I spanned a bunch of cliques, groups, even a few lame gangs."

"We had juicers, druggies, motor heads, hippies (yes I’m that old,) rockers, heavy metal rockers, jocks and nerds."

Each clique had its own coda, jargon, ethics, special interests, badges of honor (or dishonor) and tests of loyalty.

Products always are some part of how cliques identify themselves. That's the "hook" a brand hopes to put out there when using Facebook or other social networks as a marketing channel. But there are lots of obvious caveats. The products are not the groups. It is the people who are the social network, the products are props.

So most brands will not be authentic members of the social group, but the provider of key props. And not every product has high emotional value, or works as a key prop. Most social groups that have a product as an identifier or prop only have a few such props, just as most consumers have a handful of relevant brands with high emotional ties. Starbucks, Apple, Whole Foods or Lexis might be some of those types of "high involvement" products.

But it simply doesn't make sense that most products people use and buy actually have much chance of achieving either high emotional involvement or therefore effectiveness on Facebook or other networks. It's just like the notion of "followers" on Twitter. Only a handful of human beings actually have "millions" of followers, and nearly all are celebrities.

Something similar happens when brands use Facebook, and most businesses try to use Facebook these days. In most cases, most brands are not going to be among the handful of names that any single human being actually does want to interact with.

Also, it is the other people any person wants to have the involvement with, even when the brand is relevant. The point is to be realistic about what Facebook can provide. Groups are about "people like me," even when the badge happens to be a product or brand. The badge isn't necessarily part of the group.

Secrets of Social Media You Learned in High School | Guest Posts | Social Media Consulting - Convince & Convert

Sometimes Technology Has to Catch Up Before an App Can Take Off

Jack Dorsey tried a "Twitter" approach 11 years ago, broadcasting his notes and thoughts to friends and family using email and a Blackberry. It didn't really work very well. Twitter was launched six years later.

That happens quite frequently in the technology business: people have ideas but the infrastructure won't support the apps.

Right idea, wrong time: Twitter in the pre-Twitter days | VentureBeat