Weblog Consulting Register Login Subscribe to Free Influx Emails Join our Facebook Group Follow us on Twitter Branding Street Cred Technology Lifestyle Style Entertainment Interviews Art InfluxTV Map Widgets RSS — All Subjects RSS — More Feeds

Search

Advanced Search

Contact Privacy Policy

The missing link in the coming mobile revolution is the payments piece. Various people and players have been struggling for years to come up with a solution that works across handsets, networks and operating systems. Then there's the issue of security and making sure that everything works as planned.

Currently, Amazon and EBay have made huge strides in making mobile payments, not just a reality, but a highly lucrative part of their business models. Although, huge these two players represent a tiny fraction of the universe.

This could be about change thanks to a company called BOKU, who have just started participating in a trial with AT&T. The system can work across platforms and is very simple from the user perspective.

"The process for making a payment is simple and convenient - users simply click BOKU to purchase and then 1. Enter their mobile number, 2. Receive a text message to confirm, and 3. Reply with the letter “y.”

BOKU has certainly attracted a lot of attention, including- Apple's.

It remains to be seen if the company waits to seize the big prize of offering its services across networks and handsets or goes for a quick sale.

If it's the former, there's the potential of this new service to radically change the mobile advertising space. If there's a simple, easy-to-use payment method advertisers will have opportunities to sell direct and making the advertising market instantly viable.


Posted by Ed Cotton When your brand is powerful and iconic, others do the marketing for you.
Apple may spend hundreds of millions a year promoting its brand, but it's often the work of the "crowd" that generates the most attention.

Take a look at the work of the iPad orchestra.
 

The iPad Orchestra from Alex Shpil on Vimeo.

Posted by Ed Cotton Research work by Christopher Hsse and his colleagues at  University of Chicago has revealed some interesting traits about human behavior; namely that we are naturally inclined towards idleness to conserve energy, we would rather do nothing, but we are happier and less bored when we are busy.

Therefore finding hooks and ways to make people feel like they are busy or giving them the illusion of busyness is a huge business opportunity for experience creators.

One example given by BPS is making travelers walk further to pick up their bags, rather than making them wait at baggage claim. Given a task like walking to a destination is more pleasurable than simply standing and waiting.

This simple and somewhat obvious insight must explain the massive appeal and success of applications for phones and tablets.

The user feels that that these distractions will keep them occupied for a while and are pure examples of futile busyness, just the fact they exist and are easily accessible is probably enough for most users to hook them in and get them to trial. They are the "digital candies" of the information age.

While many of these apps might lack staying power, for the store owners like Apple, it's the constant stream of new apps and potential distractions that make the store exciting to users. The problem for Apple will come if the rate of application development slows and there are fewer and fewer newer and interesting applications to satisfy user cravings for futile busyness.


Posted by Ed Cotton We are hearing reports of 11% CTRs for the first wave of Apple iAds that have appeared on various applications, then there's this from foursquare..

" our friends at Monique’s Chocolates in Palo Alto have acquired over 50 new customers and saw well over 100 redemptions as a result of running a Special Offer over the past seven weeks:



The owner of Monique’s, Mark, also told us that he is running the same Special in his local newspaper (cost of ad = $300!) and has acquired only one customer with one redemption from that print ad. He adds that for those who redeem the Special via foursquare “more than 25% return regularly to get something, to Check in, to see who the mayor is…the gaming part of foursquare really does resonate with people and we’re excited about it!”

OK, it's a tiny chocolate store, but there are also stories of Starbucks having similar levels of success on a much bigger scale.

While "new" these new platforms are achieving high levels of success because of the novelty factor, they have a huge advantage over their traditional ad competitors in that they can keep innovating, it's in their blood.

We are seeing new developments from foursquare that seek to evolve their existing program model. Then you've got Twitter, long seen as shy in its desire for revenue, coming up with a real interesting idea around promotions, Earlybird.

What these guys can't afford to do is stop, there will be no time to rest on their laurels of success because the novelty value will soon fade. They have to harness their core culture of innovation to perpetually ensure their experiences and their advertising/promotional experiences are constantly refreshed and kept interesting.



Posted by Ed Cotton Traditional magazine art directors seem to love the iPad because it respects the classic rules of the grid and pagination.

When we see examples of future concepts for tablets, most of the time they reference the physical magazine and just build interactivity around it. This is because the tablet is a "lean-back" device, something you read and look at on the couch, rather than "the lean-forward" experience of the computer.

Smart Design has tried their hand at imagining a future magazine concept on a tablet and have some good suggestions, based on solid research with magazine subscribers that gets translated into ideas around browsing, deeper diving and productivity. Their thoughts on the integration between mobile and magazines are especially good.

Smart Design magazine UX concept from Smart Design on Vimeo.

However, Smart's concept take a bit of a "rear view mirror" approach by exploring consumers current experiences to project into the future. In 24 months time we might be looking back at this concepts and finding them surprisingly dated. It's likely publishers and developers will come a long way in that time and create new experiences that don't mirror current magazine or online consumption, but are radically new ways to consume media.


Posted by Ed Cotton Steve Jobs isn't just a genius for his contributions to technology, he was also the first to show us the power of the "happy product walk-through", where actors demonstrate the delights of new technology.

With applications coming on stream everyday and in that battle for attention, these demos are very important, if brands and companies want attention for their applications.

Take a look at this latest from eBay showcasing their latest mobile app.



Check.

1. One happy charismatic actor- full of the joys of spring

2. Spring like music bed- evocative of a new bright future and a life made easier

3. Simple walk through of all the key features- note use of finger

4. Overall air that world will never be the same after using this new application.

Of course, there's something bigger at stake here. With the world moving to mobile these demos are in a small way defining the future of the brand and of the brand experience.



Posted by Ed Cotton