Haiti disaster proves how good a channel mobile is for charity and disaster relief

At a mobile money conference in Los Angeles last November, I had the chance to talk to Jim Manis, CEO of Mobile Giving. He spoke about how charities tend to view mobile as a once off “strategy” for donation, rather than as a channel through which long-term donors can be acquired (see the full interview here). But the success of mobile as a channel for sending to the victims of the Haitian earthquake could be the turning point that changes peoples minds. Mobile really can be used to help people all over the world, every single day.

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.

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

Using mobile roaming to power mobile money transactions

There was a cluster of really interesting mobile payment companies at the Under The Radar conference near San Francisco today. One of the ones that intrigued me most was Payfone. CEO Roger Desai talked us through the offering from the company - which aims to use mobile roaming technology to power worldwide mobile transactions.

GoMo 1-to-1 at MMF: mobile marketing, money and more from Mobile Giving

I spoke to mobile veteran Jim Manis, CEO of Mobile Giving at the Mobile Marketing Forum. He’s a long time supporter of the MMA, and an influential figure in its past. But today we talked about his current pet institution: Mobile Giving. This is a non-profit charity organisation that currently helps over 350 charities collect donations via mobile. We also spoke about how the mobile channel can be used for marketing and educating of donors, and the possible commercial applications of the service

Mobile Money round-up: mobile apps, m-commerce and SMS

It has been a while since I’ve done a mobile money round-up, so I crammed seven stories into this one. We’ve got pieces about T-Mobile, Starbucks, Blackberry, US Bank and more. Enjoy!

Mobile money roundup: NACHA regulation, Visa NFC rollout and pay by sound

NACHA has declared it will expand its US payment regulations to cover mobile payments. MobiCash has announced an African contactless payment system that works by sound instead of radio - and a similar service has been announced in Germany. VISA has launched a huge trial of NFC payments in Melbourne with National Australia Bank… and more.

Visa connects to operators worldwide through NeuStar for mobile payments

Visa and NeuStar have announced an alliance to bring mobile finances straight in at the operator level. Through NeuStars history in global carrier inter-connections, Visa hopes to create a system of mobile transactions that will work reliably all over the world.

BOKU decloaks, reveals global mobile payment network

Mobile payments company BOKU today stood up and announced its presence with style, after spending the last 5 months in what it called “stealth mode”. And by “with style”, I mean that it bought out two other mobile payment companies and announced $13 million in Series A funding from three investors. The company aims to [...]

GoPayment enables credit card transactions on mobile web or app

Intuit Inc has released a mobile payments service for small businesses. The GoPayment service processes credit card transactions through a mobile device, either via the mobile Web or a downloadable application. Intuit, which also produces a set of business management tools called QuickBooks, is aiming to ensure that businesses can get paid on the spot, [...]

Mobile transaction network mBlox appoints new CEO

mBlox, specialists in mobile billing, today announced the appointment of Andrew Dark as its global Chief Executive Officer. Andrew will take up his position by the end of March 2009 and be responsible for leading mBlox through its next phase of global growth.
Andrew comes to mBlox from his position as Chief Executive at DataCash Group [...]

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