Google Wallet is officially live – for those of you who happen to have a Sprint Nexus S 4G phone and a Citi Mastercard at least.
But, the rest of us can be excited about the future. This Google Wallet app, accessible via PIN, making it safer than your physical wallet, uses near-field communication (like Speedpass at the gas station) to pay using your credit card.
Load your coupons and loyalty cards in your Google Wallet, and single tap your discounted payment.
Google isn’t the only one coming out with this type of application. But, as you well know, first to market is nearly everything. The sooner Google can roll out partnerships with the rest of the phone and credit card companies, the sooner Google Wallet will own this industry.
You walk in to your favorite restaurant in the city. You pull out your phone to brag to your friends, and possibly see that someone you know is there, too. So, what do you do? Check in to Foursquare, Google Places, Facebook Places, Yelp, or one of the many other check-in options?
Sonar, a new geo-location notification aggregate, can now do better – telling you which of your Foursquare, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn friends are there – and tweet them directly to let them now you’ve arrived. This all-in-one functionality is terrific obviously, but relies on all of your contacts actually utilizing one of these services to check in themselves.
And how many people are going to check in via LinkedIn? Well, perhaps a business conference, I suppose?
It’s an example of an awesome possibility that will only become awesome once these services start auto-checking you into places – which admittedly, is uber-creepy.
Ever been stuck on the road somewhere trying to find your team’s score during the big game? It can be awful. Even if you make it to your official NFL team’s website, it can be hard to find the live game score.
So, some of us have resorted to ESPN or Football-specific apps that provide real-time scoring. But these mobile apps can take up a huge amount of your smartphone’s internal memory. And Google has found a solution around it.
Google has partnered with ESPN so that your team-related Google search results instantly provide real-time scoring, schedules and standings. It’s a football fan’s dream come true.
Teenagers no longer watch TV. They interact with it.
That’s the biggest transmedia lesson we can take from this year’s Video Music Awards hosted by MTV. 5 1/2 million tweets. 66,000 Facebook posts. 80% of them positive. 65% of them posted by girls. 50% of them taking place via mobile.
You might ask, why did Twitter have such a big response as compared to Facebook, the social media giant? Well, MTV encouraged it, incorporating hashtags # in the show – leading the discussion. Social media now allows us to watch TV together, even when we’re alone. To provide a collective running commentary.
It’s a brave new world. And it’s taking place two screens at a time.
That’s the message the Financial Times has learned after their iPhone and iPad apps have both been pulled from the App Store. This after refusing to comply with Apple’s new terms and commitments regarding in-app subscription payments. Financial Times claims that their beef with Apple isn’t the 30% cut that Apple takes on in-app purchases, but Apple’s control over subscriber data.
So, the Financial Times has called Apple’s bluff, and are now directing their readers to a proprietary Web app. This will be an incredibly interesting case study to look at moving forward – determining whether or not periodicals can live and thrive outside of iOS.
Google Mapmaker is looking to crowdsource their maps – utilizing individuals to add walking and biking routes to their neighborhoods, since Google employees doing this by hand simply isn’t going to happen.
Bing is taking a different approach. It looks like Bing is manually entering walking routes in key customer locations. In fact, they seem to be focusing on malls. Today, Microsoft’s search engine currently contains more than 400 national shopping malls available in map form on Bing for Mobile.
These venue maps allow you to plan your trips better. “What’s the fastest way to go to Macy’s, Charming Charlie’s, Mrs. Fields Cookies and back to my car?” With Bing maps, you can program your walking route to those specific locations on your mobile phone.
I like the long-term possibilities of Google MapMaker. But, I love the short-term benefits of Bing employees doing the work for us.
We’re past the point where businesses need to understand that a mobile strategy is important for their continued growth. But every once in a while, it’s important to wrap your head around the numbers of this growing market. So, that’s what we’ll quickly cover today.
25% of the globe’s mobile phones are smartphones. 75% are SMS-enabled (can text).
But, this will blow you SEOs away. 50% of Web searches are done via mobile device, and within 5 years, the mobile Internet is expected to overtake the desktop Internet. And yet, 79% percent of major online businesses still do not have a site optimized for mobile browsing.
It’s a model that Facebook is having abundant success with. It’s called the Freemium model. You make a game free to the public. But, to advance more quickly in the game, to be able to build faster or buy new things, you can short-cut your way using Facebook credits for in-game purchases. This is how Farmville became one of the most financially profitable games in history.
In fact, Analytics company Flurry claims that it is actually MORE profitable for mobile developers to offer their app for free – in terms of overall revenue generated (65%). It sounds a little crazy. But, think about it. There’s no start-up cost. This allows countless more people to start playing your game. And if you believe in the long-term value of your game, then this model of mobile gaming may make the most financial sense for you.
But, the reality is that this doesn’t work for every game. For simulation games like Farmville and Pawn Stars, this makes sense. For other games like Angry Birds, it’s harder. Unless you charge to open up more levels – but that doesn’t even really count as part of the Freemium model. That’s more like a “trial” version.
Let the daily deals debate continue. Today’s question is – is Groupon an industry or a small part of something much bigger?
With Google Shopper 2.0, it looks like they’re designing for the latter. This incorporation of daily deals within the Android App hopes to not only provide you with competitive information on products via mobile. But, now you can instantly access daily offers at nearby businesses.
Today’s Offer will display today’s “Daily Deal”, the Groupon equivalent of the day. Nearby Offers allows you to see any local dining or amusement offers any business location with a Google Place account is offering that day. And the My Offers tab allows you to save and store offers. Think coupon cutting without the scissors.
Google Shopper 2.0 is currently available for Android 2.1 and higher devices.
The common maxim is that the iPhone is more than a phone. But, is the reality that it’s much less?
Because it seems that iPhone is really becoming much more of a gaming device than anything else. In fact, it has become a legitimate gaming platform. A recent Nielsen report claims that video games are now the single most popular apps for mobile devices, and that iPhone users are the most frequent video game downloaders.
The average smartphone user spends 8 hours a month playing video games on their mobile device, while iPhone users play for 14.7 hours a month.
The next question is, is Apple a legitimate competitor in the Nintendo, Playstation, XBox wars?
