Focus on customers, not iPhones - how to make mobile marketing work for Hostels

Some good news from eBay as mobile purchases soar over Christmas

In some ways, it has not been the best of years for eBay. The entire “Skype hand-off” debacle forced the on-line auction powerhouse to agree to a humiliating sale for the most popular VoIP service in the world. But now that nasty business is behind it, eBay seems determined to start the good press rolling again. And here is a great start - eBay has reported that it’s sale of goods through the eBay mobile application has tripled since last year, with 1.5 million items being bought by mobile users.

Yet more mobile banking - but it’s mobile payments we need.

Two industry leaders announced a mobile banking partnership today. Canada-based Scotiabank and mobile payments veteran M-Com will be launching an extensive service early next year. But the banks that are announcing mobile service now are really just catching up, and we need to be looking forward to mass adoption of mobile payment services.

GoMo 1-to-1: mobile social media hub Shozu looks at m-commerce

I had a great interview with Chris Wade, CEO of Shozu, at the Under The Radar conference last week. So far in its life, Shozu has focused on being a hub for mobile photo sharing that connects outwards to the most popular social networks. Now Shozu is looking at expanding this platform into financial transactions

Mobile payments start-up Bling Nation looking for nice operator

GoMo News had a 1-to-1 with Wences Casares, Founder, Director and Co-CEO of Bling Nation. One of the more promising payment start-ups at the Under The Radar conference, the mobile payments company uses NFC stickers to replace credits cards at point-of-sale transactions. Wences gaves me a live demo of the service. We spoke about how Bling only works with banks at the moment, and what Bling might achieve with operators.

Mobile money goes international, cheap and quick with m-Via

At the the Under The Radar conference near San Francisco today, there have been some really great mobile finance start-ups pitching to the crowd. For those who love mobile payments and m-commerce as much as I do, you’ll be interested in hearing the cheap, international money transfer service being launched by m-Via. There was a panel of expert judges on hand to grill m-Via CEO Bill Baryhar as he pitched the service, and I’ve included some of their pertinent questions here.

As mobile commerce becomes more popular, so will mobile fraud

Here’s a nicely timed little scare story about mobile security. Anti-fraud company 41st Parameter is reporting the emergence of mobile commerce coupled with advanced smartphones will lead to a “groundswell” of m-commerce fraud.

Are ABnote and Sicap the next big thing in NFC mobile commerce?

A mobile software expert and a banking provider have teamed up to push mobile NFC for banking. ABnote and Sicap have announced that they are setting themselves up as an “aggregator” for any bank, retailer or mass transit provider that wants to create an NFC system. If this paragraph hasn’t made any sense to you so far, then don’t worry! All will be explained.

Enterprise app from Wells Fargo goes from Blackberry to iPhone

I’ve always been impressed with Wells Fargo when it comes to mobile services. It’s a financial institution that has always been willing to try new things on mobile, and try to pre-empt customer needs in the space. Now it has announced that its CEO Mobile service on Blackberry is being launched as an iPhone app.

Mobile money roundup: NFC, Indian unbanked, Fiserv and Xcellink

Fiserv continues to spread mobile to smaller American banks. Indian Corporation Bank is using mobile to provide commerce services to 2,000 unbanked villages. Xcellink has secured an important mobile transactions patent in China. Twinlinx and Inside Contactless have announced a partnership to drive NFC-based mobile payments in North America.

M-Parking: mobile commerce makes parking more profitable

At the Mobile Commerce World event in San Francisco today there was a great presentation about the effect of mobile technologies on parking management (it doesn’t sound too fascinating from the description I know, but bear with me). The case study was presented by the Assistant General Manager of the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADT), Amir Sedadi, where they are implementing new and mobile forms of parking management - and seeing an increase in efficiency and revenue because of it.

GoMo 1-to-1: the future of mobile payments with OpenMarket

I interviewed Jay Emmet from mobile communications hub OpenMarket at Mobile Commerce World in San Francisco. We had a great interview, covering “second wave” app stores; the unique position that telcos are in to push mobile commerce forward; the future of mobile as a more powerful payment method than credit cards and more.

Mobile Commerce World: how mobile payment can revolutionise public transit

At Mobile Commerce World in San Francisco, we heard a great talk from David L deKozan, VP of Worldwide Business Development for Cubic. Now, Cubic is one of those companies that you’ve probably never heard of… but chances are you use their services all the time. If you’ve ever used public transport, you’ve almost certainly used a Cubic product. The company handles automatic fare collection for transit, particularly smartcards - so if you’ve used a MetroCard in New York, a SmarTrip card in Washington or an Oyster card in London (for starters), you’ve used a Cubic card. And David gave us a great talk on the future of mobile in the public transit / smartcard space.

Mobile Commerce World: paying through applications with PayPal

At the Mobile Commerce World conference in San Francisco today, I was unfortunate enough to see a demo of mobile payment from PayPal. In this video, you’ll see Eric Duprat, General Manager, Pay Pal Mobile presenting what the company hopes the future of mobile application payments to be… by ordering pizza over your mobile.

GoMo 1-to-1 at Mobile Commerce World: Sybase 365 talks about Western Union

I interviewed Cameron Franks of Sybase 365 at the Mobile Commerce World event in San Francisco today. Sybase handles literally billions of interconnections between mobile operators, mostly in the form of SMS. Cameron and I spoke about the mobile commerce services that Sybase is working on: including its recent announcement of a deal with Western Union, and plans to offer more value to customers through mobile finances.

Mobile News for Leaders