Google Wallet and Offers, Make Mobile Payments

Written by Georg

“In the past few thousand years, the way we pay has changed just three times—from coins, to paper money, to plastic cards.

Now we’re on the brink of the next big shift.”

http://www.google.com/wallet/vision.html

It happened yesterday, the announcement of Google Wallet and Google Offers, but the spoiler arrived a day before yesterday from Google’s partner on this much expected mobile payments method.

“ViVOtech near field communication (NFC) software and systems enable rich mobile commerce solutions for in-store payment, loyalty, marketing, and merchandising.” This is what they write on their site. And they partnered with Google for this innovative next leap in electronic mobile payment systems.



It only takes you identify the right symbols at the checkout where you can tap your phone to pay with Citi, Master or the Gcard, a Google Prepaid Card. In the short and hasslefree tapping process, some vendors will make their check-in offers to your phone, along with other automated loyalty discounts loading to your smart phone, so you’re better off without leaflets, paper coupons or similar marketing stuff. A Google Wallet PIN, along with few extra security tokens will make your transactions as safe as reasonably possible.

From San Francisco, New York and Portland, where this new mobile payment technology is introduced this summer, the wave will arrive to your neck of the woods. Because for Google Wallet, the field trials began yesterday and it will be official out this summer. As expected, it will be using NFC technology. By 2014, 50 percent of smartphones will have NFC built into them, that’s 150 million devices.

SEO for Mobile Devices

Written by Georg

Mobile devices are the hip of the present and the most of the future. Your online marketing strategy, centered around your website, can’t ignore the mobile market. If you read this, then you definitely own a website of your own, promoting your small business or maybe just a blog, writing about events worth sharing.

Now, have you tried to see how your website looks on your Droid smart phone, or on an iPhone? Sure, it can’t display exactly as it does on your laptop or desktop, iPad or any decent tablet brand. Design optimization for mobile devices, like smart phones, is an aspect and there’s one more, no less important than your website’s design. This is the search engine optimization specially crafted for the phone with Android or the iPhone with iOS — in short your SEO for mobile devices.

Watch this movie with tips on the matter. Think global and act local!

Think Global, Act Local: Asymmetrical Friendships by Twitter

Written by Georg

Actually it’s more of a “following” than “friendshipping,” so to say. The social networks sometimes lie to themselves, and to you. Well, have you really expected not to? Take Facebook and the imperious goal of connecting with thousands and thousands of new “friends.” The misconception:

“Your friends are equally important
Your friends are arranged into discrete groups
You can manage hundreds of friends
Friendship is reciprocal and equal”

The reality:

“British developer Tom Hume recently went to hear a talk by the anthropologist Robin Dunbar — who famously posited that most humans can only handle around 150 social relationships — discuss his views on our ultramodern ways of staying in touch.”

So then is all this social networking a hoax? Yes and no. Yes, it’s a hoax when you’re an individual believing that you can friend with your neighbors, or former classmates, in an equal manner like with anyone on planet Earth; real life works a bit differently than virtual communications; even if you manage to win some excellent friendships from other continents, this doesn’t mean “anyone, anywhere.”

And no, there’s no hoax hidden in the ads of social networking when you take it one step further, to the marketing arena. You own a business, or work for a web business, and naturally you have to promote services and products, for the business. At this point, social media turns from weird to wonderful. You don’t need expensive local teams nor expensive TV ads to extend the reach of your product or service. Besides brilliant ideas, that come for free, you will be good with Facebook and Twitter flanking your business blogs and web stores.

“The asymmetrical and casual nature of social networks is allowing humans to engage in what Robin Dunbar has termed “social grooming” with increasingly larger groups — without investing increasingly larger amounts of time. The value of these communications improvements is so great that going forward, I expect significant increases in human and capital investments in this space.”

http://gigaom.com/2009/08/23/dunbars-number-and-the-future-of-communications/

Thinking global and acting local, this should be the best recipe for a successful business on the social web.

New Samsung Gadgets

Written by Chris

A few days ago, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the well-known gadgets-producer Samsung presented its two brand new products to the world: the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (running Android 3.0), and the Samsung Galaxy S II (running Android 2.3).

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1n could mean a real competition for the iPad, because it almost overrides the limits of a tab. Not just the display, the resolution and the nice touch gives it a better chance, but also the new software, Google’s Android 3.0, also called “Honeyware”.

It is amazing to see how fast technology develops nowadays! You may ask yourself, do we actually need all these gadgets coming out in a newer version every 6 months? In my opinion, it isn’t a bad thing, when you think of the place and energy saving you can reach having a pad instead of a PC! These little computers are simplifying our lives, and having even more versions of them is a good thing, because we are more spoiled by our gadgets daily.

Source: www.techspot.com