Consumers Want Mobile Loyalty. And They Want it Now.
Two interesting statistics were revealed in the media this week: 1) there were more than 4 million iPhones sold in its first week of availability and 2) 33% of mobile users surveyed by Hipcricket indicated that they want loyalty programs on their mobile phones. So, what’s the obvious connection between these two tidbits? The convergence of mobile and shopping [...]
What Today’s iPhone Announcement Means for Mobile Wallets
Today’s Apple iPhone announcement was highly anticipated by assorted geeks, Apple fanboys, wireless carriers and… payment processing providers. The geeks and fanboys will line up for virtually anything Apple releases, and the wireless carriers are hoping for a fourth quarter revenue boost, but the group that had the most to gain was actually the payment [...]
Most Mobile Wallets are Paving the Cowpath
I have a pet peeve when it comes to innovation: companies that claim to be innovative but simply replicate their current process or service in a new medium or new technology platform. What I call paving the cowpath. They don’t really introduce anything radical or revolutionary, they just repackage their existing process and claim that [...]
Top 5 Trends From WSAA
We jetted out to the west coast last week for the final trade show of our year – the Western States Acquirers Association conference – and returned with reinvigorated friendships with our west coast clients and a renewed enthusiasm for next month’s Paycloud launch. The Top 5 trends we saw at the show: The essential [...]
Paycloud Launch Date Revealed
It’s official. The Paycloud mobile loyalty and gift application will be available to merchants nationwide on October 27. Suspense started building when we first revealed Paycloud at the ETA show in San Diego and walked away with their 2011 Innovation Award. The anticipation increased in July when we demonstrated the live version of Paycloud at [...]
NFC. Not Ready for Primetime?
There’s been a lot of press attention devoted recently to the emergence of mobile wallets. It seems that every major player in the payments industry has announced a mobile wallet application, and every one has one thing in common: NFC. So why are we releasing Paycloud without NFC support? This should explain it: and this: [...]
Plan for success, for failure… and death
In my years as a serial entrepreneur, I’ve engaged repeatedly in the same conversations no matter what company I was working for or with. These exchanges usually center around arcane corporate details: a term-sheet’s preemptive rights provision or the “what-if” scenario concerning an exit or liquidity event. These are the things that a founder is [...]
File Under Wishful Thinking
There is no doubt that the trend towards mobile commerce – defined by consumers using their mobile phones to conduct commercial transactions – is inevitable. If executed thoughtfully, mobile commerce has the potential to provide enormous benefits to both consumers and merchants. However, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt’s assertion that 1/3 of all restaurants and retail [...]
