Last week, Local Corporation released survey results from its latest round of consumer mobile shopping research. The company is promoting a new version of its local-mobile shopping app Havvit. The survey was conducted in March and carried out by the Chicago-based e-tailing group and consisted of nearly 1,300 US smartphone owners. Among other questions the […]
It’s being reported today (originally by VentureBeat) that Verizon has blocked implementation of Google Wallet on the new Galaxy Nexus handset. Verizon is the exclusive US carrier of the heavily anticipated device. According to a statement issued to Bloomberg, Verizon is citing security as the rationale: Verizon Wireless, the largest U.S. wireless carrier, blocked Google Inc.’s […]
When Google Wallet launched last month I wrote that it was important but mostly symbolic because of its limited availability. Wallet is only available on the Nexus S (from Sprint) and relies on the availability of NFC-enabled credit card terminals. The NFC technology on which Google Wallet is based requires a physical chip in the phone, effectively […]
As expected, Google has formally announced the first rollout of Google Wallet — the company’s first official entry into the growing mobile payments space. But Wallet is only taking a baby step today. Google says the app is only being made available to Sprint Nexus S 4G phones, and users will be able to pay […]
According to documents seen by TechCrunch, Google Wallet is launching later today a bit behind schedule. As we discussed when the announcement was initially made in May, only a small number of people will initially have access to Google Wallet. There are only a handful of merchant and retail partners and only one handset currently […]
[As promised below in our post from late Tuesday night, the first Google Offer just arrived minutes ago in my Gmail inbox. Here’s a screenshot, followed by the remainder of Tuesday night’s post about it.] Sometime in the next several hours, presumably thousands of Google users in the Portland, Ore., area will get an email […]
For more than a decade people have prophesied the end of cash and credit cards. And for the past two years the drumbeat around mobile payments has grown steadily louder with the adoption of smartphones. Now numerous companies are jockeying to participate in what expected to be a huge market that will eventually generate billions […]
In California it’s almost impossible to stop a key employee from jumping ship to a rival company. The law heavily favors the employee’s right to earn a living and typically won’t permit the former employer to prevent the employee from working for a rival. California law does, however, protect “trade secrets” and will sometimes permit […]
Google’s Commerce VP Stephanie Tilenius took the stage this morning in New York to announce what everyone was expecting: Google Wallet. She said that Google wants to create “tomorrow’s best shopping experience” and “bring online and offline together” through an open payments platform. Google aspires to bring offers, payments and loyalty together at the point […]
Bloomberg is reporting that Google will formally announce a mobile payments service later this week. The service will reportedly be offered initially through US carrier Sprint. The service will be initially available in five US cities: New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, D.C. according to Bloomberg. Interestingly Sprint has its own recently launched stored-credit card payments […]
Google’s Gingerbread (Android 2.3) offers near field communication (NFC) support, which can be used for both “contactless payments” and marketing purposes. People tend to think about and discuss NFC in the context of “mobile wallets” and payments exclusively but there’s a great deal more it can do. For example, Google has been testing NFC-based marketing […]
While Apple has reportedly decided to forgo NFC-related hardware/software in iPhone 5 because of a lack of standards, Google is to begin testing NFC-based mobile payments at selected stores in New York and San Francisco according to an article in Bloomberg: The company will pay for installation of thousands of special cash-register systems from VeriFone […]
Google CEO Eric Schmidt, writing in the Harvard Business Review (via RWW), says that Google’s 2011 initiatives are “all about mobile.” In his short piece he explains that geolocation on smartphones enables contexual personalization and a range of new possibilities and user experiences. But to realize that vision there are three infrastructure elements that must […]
Google has its eyes on a mobile payment service that would allow users to pay for common goods and services by waving or tapping their mobile phones. That’s according to a BusinessWeek report that cites “two people familiar with the plans.” BusinessWeek’s sources say the payment service could debut this year. It would be based […]
The Google Nexus S is out today. It was previewed incognito by Google CEO Eric Schmidt at Web 2.0 a few weeks ago. A Samsung Galaxy S-based handset running Android 2.3, it’s the new Android Flagship phone and reputedly best Android device out there — according to early reviews. We’ll get our proverbial mitts on […]
Google CEO Eric Schmidt will be speaking today at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. I’m here and will be live blogging his remarks, when the session begins. Schmidt is set to speak at 2:35pm Pacific, and he’ll be interviewed on stage by John Battelle and Tim O’Reilly. Live blogging to start shortly. There’s […]
People have been expecting the paid Android apps market for months and it’s finally, officially here. What this means is that developers can start charging for their apps and consumers will start gaining access to and paying for selected apps on Android phones (which now is only the G1). The Apple iPhone paid apps market […]
Friday, a Google patent application filing named Text message payment was posted at the US Patent & Trademark Office site. The patent described how “GPay” can be used to make payment via text messages. An example of how Gpay can be used includes mostly offline scenarios such as paying for items in vending machines or […]