Now Banks are Worried About "Dumb Pipe"

Dickson Chu, who is leading Citi’s participation in the Google Wallet effort, says the bank understands its role in the coming era of mobile commerce. Citi intends to provide the secure payment piece to mobile wallets and other m-commerce offerings.

This “bank grade” payment service would be combined with the new mobile advertising-funded models planned by emerging m-commerce players, such as its partner Google.

Chu noted that banks are not the most innovative of organizations, something that sounds familiar if you work in the telecom business. He also warned that the evolving m-commerce landscape “must not relegate us to becoming a dumb pipe." That also sounds familiar.

Citi Exec: Banks Must Not Get Left Behind in Coming Era of M-Commerce

Businesses boost their Facebook Markeiting

Online advertising channels, ranging from search engines to social networks, are attracting larger budgets from businesses across the country, a recent report from IgnitionOne indicates. But it is Facebook that seems to be getting outsized traction. Facebook advertising spend is up 22 percent year over year on a same-client-basis, with impressions up 11 percent.

Facebook advertising also has experienced high rates of growth due to new marketer adoption in the past year, which contributed to a 280 percent increase in spend across all clients and 200 percent increase in impressions year over year.  Read more here.

While companies already using the popular social network for marketing purposes have increased budgets allocated to Facebook by 22 percent compared to last year, a growing number of companies have begun to integrate the social network into their marketing mix for the first time. Overall, IgnitionOne observed a 280 percent year-over-year increase in advertising spend. See Businesses boost their Facebook marketing efforts

Google "Transparency Report" Shows How Often Governments Ask Google to Remove Content, or Block Google Entirely

Sometimes Google has to remove content from its domain because government agencies around the world ask Google to do so.

Jun 2, 2011	Syria	All Google services inaccessible. [Source: Renesys]
Mar 28, 2011	Armenia	All Google services partially accessible. [Source: Guardian]
Mar 28, 2011	Georgia	All Google services partially accessible. [Source: Guardian]
Mar 3, 2011	Libya	All Google services inaccessible.
Mar 1, 2011	Turkey	Blogger partially accessible. [Source: TurkishPress]
Feb 18, 2011	Libya	All Google services inaccessible.
Feb 17, 2011	Libya	YouTube inaccessible.
Feb 8, 2011	Syria	YouTube accessible. [Source: BBC]
Jan 30, 2011	Iran	Google Videos inaccessible.
Jan 27, 2011	Egypt	All Google services inaccessible for 5 days during protests. [Source: Renesys]
Jan 26, 2011	Sudan	YouTube was partially accessible for 3 days.
Jun 3, 2010	Turkey	Adwords, Analytics and Docs inaccessible for a week during attempt to block YouTube. [Source: ONI]
May 20, 2010	Pakistan	YouTube inaccessible for 6 days due to concerns around the "Everyone Draw Mohammad Day" competition organized by a Facebook user. [Source: CNN]
Jun 13, 2009	Iran	YouTube inaccessible following disputed Presidential election. [Source: ONI]
Mar 23, 2009	China	YouTube inaccessible.
Mar 6, 2009	Bangladesh	YouTube inaccessible for 4 days due to controversial content. [Source: BBC]

All dates are given in Pacific time.

Read more here

Why Do People "Follow" or "Like" Brands on Social Networks?

Google's Zero Moment of Truth

The "zero moment of truth" is a marketing concept that deals with the amount of time that lapses between an advertising message and a consumer taking action on the message.

Here's an ebook Google put together about the concept and what it means for marketing and advertising.

Zero Moment of Truth E-Book

You can figure out why Google thinks the concept is important. To the extent there is latency between ad and action, Google thinks it can create quite a nice business reducing latency.

PayPal Sees End of Physical Wallets by 2015

"We believe that by 2015 digital currency will be accepted everywhere in the U.S., from your local corner store to Walmart," says Scott Thompson, PayPal president. "We will no longer need to carry a wallet."

The prediction came as PayPal announced it has reached 100 million active accounts.

PayPal believes that as the lines between online and offline commerce continue to blur, the payment industry’s model for is looking more and more like PayPal’s, says Sam Shrauger, PayPal VP. PayPal has been handling mobile payments since 2006, he says.

PayPal Crosses First 100 Million Active Accounts

Debit Card Fee Rules Issued by Federal Reserve

In a move that apparently settles a nettlesome issue directly affecting the fortunes of retail merchants and banks that issue debit cards (and which indirectly affects the attractiveness of new mobile payment systems built on a transaction fee revenue model), the Federal Reserve Board issued the final version of Regulation II, which sets new rules for debit card transactions. Retail trade groups and banking trade groups have been at odds over the final rules for months.

The “Final Rule” implements Section 1075 of the “Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act,” known as the Durbin Amendment.

The rules will go into effect on October 1, 2011 and sets a cap of 21 cents on transactions. That rate essentially lessens the financial sting for card-issuing banks, but also lowers fees for retailers. The original rules might have resulted in limits as low as seven cents per transaction, or as high as 12 cents per transaction.

The rule as adopted allows card issuers to charge up to 21 cents per transaction, plus five basis points of the transaction value. On a $40 transaction, this represents a 48 percent cut in revenue from current rates.

On the other hand, the worst-case scenario for banks would have called for a, which is a 75 percent cut in transaction revenues.

Aside from the direct impact on retailers and card-issuing banks, the rules also create a differently dimensioned revenue stream for any contestants in the mobile payments business that hope to make a business out of transaction fees.

Read more here