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While commercial partnerships are definitely key to the broad appeal of Serve, part of Sanghi’s master plan in furthering Serve’s presence is a connection with developers. “It is difficult for mobile payments startups to scale without partnerships with some of the major financial partners,” he explains. “There are a lot of regulation in terms of moving money, and fraud management and we want to be the partner mobile payments startups think of in this space.” Sanghi says that in first half of next year, American Express will open up the Serve platform to developer community.

Another area where American Express is focusing its efforts when it comes to Serve is on data. “Data is going to be a differentiating factor in the payments space,” Sanghi explains. A personalized experience is going to be key in providing the digital wallet that consumers flock to, he says. And it’s not just purchasing data that American Express is looking to mine.

Intent data, structured data and unstructured data will all play a part of delivering a personalized payments experience. That means analyzing things such as Tweets, Twitter sentiment, your social graph, Facebook updates and more to deliver targeted offers. “The magic is going to be in marrying structured data and unstructured data for results in real-time,” Sanghi says.

With 100 million card members, American Express’ data opportunities are massive. But privacy is a key concern in this data mining, says Sanghi, and the company has to be sure they aren’t abusing these issues, especially as it relates to financial information. For example, the company’s Facebook partnership, in which AmEx cardholders can link their cards to their Facebook accounts to receive deals, is an opt-in experience.

Across the board, American Express is going to be announcing many more commercial partnerships including those with gaming and telecommunications companies. Serve will also soon enter new geographies, says Sanghi, which will also be a key part of the platform’s growth in the next year.

Of course, American Express has competition in the digital wallets space, and companies like PayPal and even Google are also looking to compete. And fellow credit card companies such as Visa have major ambitions to dominate the digital wallet. Regardless, all of these companies need to fine-tune their offerings so that the benefit to consumers is clear. The battle to become the de facto digital wallet is just starting, and which payments provider that will create the technology that keeps consumers engaged has yet to be determined.

Dr Brendan Baker, Business Development Manager for Opengear. “The challenge is both in opening up this mass of data, and turning it into usable information. That way, every day things can make smart decisions based on their environments – say a hot water system that activates only as needed based on learned household habits, or even negotiates a tariff with the gas provider.”

. “Opengear smart devices aren’t limited to providing the plumbing to securely connect these systems, they are capable of making the smart decisions at the edge. We are already seeing them rolled out in these kinds of applications, particularly in utilities, security and health sectors and as part of smart cities initiatives.”

With the Lianlian Group, AmEx gets access to a company that has partnered with 3 of the largest carriers in China, and served one-third of all Chinese mobile users through payments network infrastructure, he explains. So a Chinese consumer who was paying cash to get minutes can now load the Serve-powered Lianlian digital wallet and have the choice of digital commerce, paying bills via their mobile wallet, send peer-to-peer payments, buying more minutes and ringtones and more, says Schulman.

Another area where we’ll see Serve expand is on data. As Harshul Sanghi, American Express’ VP of Enterprise Growth Group, told us recently, the personalized experience is going to be key in providing the digital wallet that consumers flock to. Intent data, structured data and unstructured data will all play a part of delivering a personalized payments experience for Serve.

For background, Serve integrates a variety of payment options into a single account that can be funded from a bank account, debit, credit or charge card. AmEx has landed a number of lucrative carrier partner deals for Serve in the U.S. but this is the first step towards expanding Serve’s technology into one of the fastest growing consumer markets in the world.

Amex has entered into an operating agreement with Lianlian Group which will allow Lianlian to license and use Serve in products and services it develops for its consumer and business customers in China. The Serve platform will help power a new Lianlian Group digital wallet that consumers can use to top up mobile phone minutes, pay bills and purchase products or services online.

Founded in 2004, Lianlian Group has served approximately 300 million mobile phone accounts. It operates a network of over 300,000 small business agents across China where customers can buy additional top up minutes on their mobile phones. A portion of that network also allows customers to purchase airline tickets, video gaming credits and utility bills.

With the mobile penetration in China, it’s no surprise that AmEx chose the market as its first global opportunity to expand Serve. AliPay is also playing in the space.

In terms of financial companies, American Express has been at the forefront of trying to expand their mobile and digital offerings beyond the credit card business. Besides carrier partnerships for Serve, AmEx has announced a number of recent partnerships in the payments space include Foursquare, Facebook and even Zynga for personalized deals. The company has also been acquiring payments technologies and will be doing more investing in the space with a new $100 million fund.

Dealing with Image Performance We want to try to get rid of as many images as we can. For the images we keep, we want them to be as lightweight as possible. If images are a necessity for particular parts of your mobile web app design, then there are a couple of extra steps we can use to trim off any excess fat from your files.

Use Adobe Fireworks for Transparent PNGs

Using ImageAlpha If Fireworks sounds like too much of a bother, check out ImageAlpha. Once installed, all you need to do is drag your images into its main window and then tweak the export settings to remove excess data from the images.

To learn more about using PNGs in web designs, see the Web Designer’s Guide to PNG Image Format.

Leveraging CSS3 Mobile web browsers these days are pretty advanced. Android devices use a mobile version of Google Chrome, whilst the iPhone does the same with Apple’s Safari. Some mobile devices come with mobile Opera and others allow you to install a browser of your choice such as mobile Firefox. So we’re talking about some pretty good browsers in terms of CSS3 and HTML5 feature support. CSS3 allows us to render things through code that would previously have required an image. We can use color gradients, draw rounded corners, create drop shadows, apply multiple backgrounds to HTML elements, and more — all of which can help improve performance and decrease development times.

If you look at a typical application interface via your smartphone, it’s almost guaranteed that you’ll find CSS3 being used.

By using CSS3, we can reduce data transfer — particularly images and possibly excess HTML markup. We let the browser and the device do the work to render the interface more quickly.

HTML Canvas If you fancy a little more work, then you can improve speed even further using the canvas element. Although using CSS gradients eradicates the loading of a physical image, that method still causes the device’s rendering engine to construct an image in the browser, which can result in a performance reduction depending on the device and browser.

Hardware Acceleration When it comes to mobile web apps, Apple’s mobile devices are a major consideration that we need to be aware of because of the current popularity of the iPhone and iPad. Safari 5 (on all platforms) brings hardware acceleration into the mix. If you’re not familiar with the feature, Apple describes it as follows: "Safari supports hardware acceleration on Mac and PC. With hardware acceleration, Safari can tap into graphics processing units to display computing-intensive graphics and animations, so standards like HTML5 and CSS3 can deliver rich, interactive media smoothly in the browser."

Be Cautious of CSS3 Rendering Performance As brilliant as CSS3 is, certain properties can slow down a web page. WebKit-based browsers, for instance, really seem to struggle with shadows in particular, so just be careful that you don’t apply too many of these to elements of your interface until the issue has been resolved.

Consider the Offline User Experience Finally, let’s briefly discuss HTML5 offline data storage.

Isis, which was formed through a partnership involving AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and T-Mobile USA, is attempting to enter the mobile payments business at a busy time. Google has already launched Google Wallet, although it remains limited to one smartphone on Sprint Nextel, and is only compatible with merchants with newer payment terminals. Visa, meanwhile, is attempting to create its own digital wallet. American Express, which has expressed a preference to partner, on Monday said it would invest $100 million in start-ups devoted to digital payments.

The approach that Isis is taking is wholly different from Google. Isis is working on a neutral platform that serves as a foundation for other parties such as retailers, credit card issuers and payment networks, who can plug in and offer their own services to their customers. Isis doesn't access any of the customer data. Abbott said it is working with a number of different business models, including charging a rental fee to use the platform, or possibly taking a cut of each transaction. The hope is the platform is valuable enough of a tool that companies will be willing to pay to use it.

That's a wholly different approach than Google Wallet, which is largely controlled by Google. Under that model, Google is providing the payment services to retailers, payment networks and banks for free. But in exchange, it gets access to the customer's data, enabling the company to deliver targeted ads.

"Free is a price I can't afford," he said, was a common expression among the companies he talks to.

Isis started off slowly but has had a few significant announcements in the recent months. The venture managed to strike deals with the four major payment networks: Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover, which was the first to sign up with ISIS.

Its plans are for a trial to begin next year in Salt Lake City and Austin, Texas. Abbott said he wasn't worried that Isis was falling behind Google's own initiative.

Abbott is less concerned about timing because much of the infrastructure is still moving into place. Phones and merchant terminals need a technology called near-field communications to talk with each other. There are few terminals with the necessary NFC chip, and even fewer phones. The Nexus S is one of the few NFC-enabled devices, and is positioned as Google's flagship phone for Google Wallet. The upcoming Galaxy Nexus will also have NFC, as well as a number of other handsets including BlackBerrys.

ISIS is focused on building out the system, improving the customer experience, and making sure all of its partners will be ready. That includes the carriers, handset manufacturers, payment networks, banks and retailers, who all must be able to handle or direct a customer complaint if something goes wrong.

"We absolutely want to get out fast, but we won't put out anything until it's ready," he said. "The customer experience is infinitely more important than speed."

Peer 1 will operate Zunicore across three data centers in Fremont, Calif.; Toronto; and Portsmouth, England. The company also offers a service level agreement aimed to luring businesses to the cloud. It appears that Peer 1′s cloud will not compete for hard-core developers that tend to like the ability to scale on Amazon, no matter the drawbacks, but it might appeal to those customers wanting a little more flexibility than a PaaS might offer but don’t want to sweat the uncertainties that might come with a true IaaS.

“The point system has dramatically improved engagement + contribution on Moz. We’ve grown community content 200%+ in the past 24 months.”

Step 1: You need points.

But points are meaningless without a leader board.

Step 2: You need a leaderboard to get people’s competitive spirit out and allow them to compare and be compared against others.

Salesforce does the same with Nitro by gamifying real life. Sales guys get stats to see what they’re doing well, awards them with points and badges but it also lets them compare to others.

We can also use game mechanics to help people learn how to use our products – Richard mentions Ribbon Hero 2 where clippy teaches you how to use Microsoft Office products. Rather than having him jump up when it thinks you need help (as was the case back in the day) you have challenges to help clippy fix his CV, etc. Your userbase is having fun and you’re helping them learn about your product.

Encourage users to hand over data - it makes us smarter marketers.

Who does this? LinkedIn with the goals and “profile completeness” – SEOmoz does the same thing.

Badges?

Rich doesn’t know that Foursquare should work but the beauty of it is that does. Rich thinks this has to do with velocity and the fact that it makes quite boring stuff exciting and PR worthy – not knowing when a reward is coming and the fact that they come almost at random is what Rich feels makes this work.

If you have a crappy product it really doesn’t matter.

Virtual Currency/Goods

What could we do/take away from this?

Gamification for Good – IMOK, a checkin platform for kids. Connected just from one phone to the other and checking in lets the parent know they’re ok.

Reward with Status- top contributors in Webmaster forums will get flown out to Google and learn all sorts of things.

Create signups/sales with loss aversion

Help people drive their business

Generate Reviews- badge and point system for heavy users?

Increase signups

Reward for Gifting

Reward for Uplaoding Content

Generate links

Increase social shares

Motivate internally to do the same - get your inhouse team to answer FAQ type questions and reward them for their interaction and points.

these emails show Google explicitly seeking to use bundling as a tactic.  Discussing Google Maps, top Google manager Steve Lee writes:

"We are in the process of trying to bundle NLP [Google's location service] with GMM [Google Maps] on Android, just like we do on other platforms...If successful, all GMM android partners will automatically get NLP, at least when GMM is used."(p. 47)

But Google had an even bigger bundling club, tying its location-based services to the Android operating system itself, much as Microsoft tried to tie installation of its Explorer browser to its Windows operating system.   By June and July, you see the evidence of Google using that club on manufacturers to knock Skyhook out of the competition.   You have the June email from Motorola to Skyhook telling the company:

"As you will see from the language in a note received from Google (relevant text is coped below), Skyhook's implementation of the XPS service on Motola's device renders the device no longer Android compatible."(p. 27)

In 2010, Nordic Choice Hotels was first to try mobile NFC key technology in hotels: It was an important learning experience that helped identifying needed improvements and changes

“When Nordic Choice Hotels conducted an NFC key pilot in 2010 at our Clarion Hotel Stockholm property we learned that mobile keys are the future for hospitality. We also learned of some limitations to the technology and it was decided not to expand the trial,” said Svein Krakk, Nordic Choice Hotels CIO. “Indeed the pilot we ran was very educative and helped us identify several areas that needed to be improved in order to make NFC viable within a hospitality environment.

“The No. 1 priority for Nordic Choice Hotels is to provide freedom of choice for our guests," Krakk said. "Freedom to choose the phone you prefer, to use any mobile operator, to use mobile keys or ordinary keys independently or in combination. We started looking for alternative technologies addressing some of the shortcomings of the pilot. First the user interface needed to be improved. With the latest generation of NFC phones it is not very easy for the end user to figure out how to position the phone vis à vis the lock reader. We also wanted a solution that bypassed the SWP protocol which is designed to make the solution mobile operator and mobile carrier dependant. The pilot was limited to one mobile operator. More than 1,500 mobile operators / carriers exist around the world and our guests could come from anywhere, so offering a solution that works only with one or a few carriers would be pointless.”

Hotelier’s independency and cost control are key "Equally important, the SWP standard drives the cost and complexity if implementation towards areas that hoteliers do not like," he said. "It implies a long list of fees to pay to the mobile phone carriers and it places our brands and hotels in a state of dependency that is not acceptable. In addition, we felt that using a solution that would make us dependant on one lock vendor only was not a good idea."

A good mobile front desk bypass solution must be guest centric, supported by a strong business case and must be deployable for real "In 2010, we also tested the Mobile Key solution by OpenWays with CAC™ technology," Krakk said. "We appreciated that it was compatible with all cell phones worldwide, that it was easy to use and that it was mobile carrier independent. Equally important, the pilots conducted were great successes both from a technology and a guest satisfaction stand point. As a result, we decided to deploy Mobile Key by OpenWays in several hotels and we are continuing as we speak. "We also decided to challenge OpenWays to think about the next steps and to include NFC as part of their strategy," he added. "Obviously, we wanted an NFC solution that would be free of the identified shortfalls but also would allow us to eventually offer more services to our guests in the years to come. We do realize that it will take years before NFC phones reach any form of critical mass, nevertheless we want to be sure to deploy and invest in the most future-proof platform while our dependency on both mobile carriers and lock vendors would be minimal. As a result, OpenWays proposed to us Mobile Key DUAL© with Pure NFC™. We were immediately seduced with the open architecture of the OpenWays solution. We were thrilled with the idea to offer a DUAL platform allowing us to leverage all mobiles today with the CAC™ technology while building an infrastructure for when NFC will be reaching critical mass. We are now looking forward to go live with several hotels this year."

Mobile Key DUAL© with Pure NFC™ is very unique: The solution is protected by 26 patent filings and patents; It allows OpenWays' customers to deploy globally without having to ever worry about knowing if their guests have the right phone or the right carrier; And, it works with all phones and all carriers. "Pure NFC™ allows adding NFC features while still being fully carrier and lock provider independent," Metivier said. "It is highly secured and operates on trusted networks. It leverages modern cryptology combined with highly secured OTP (One Time Password) principles. Implementation costs are significantly lower than with the sole SWP protocol and significant engineering efforts were invested in making the user interface intuitive. This was achieved with the design of very specific RFID antennas designed to provide high reading performances with the next generation of NFC handsets. Other areas of focus were ergonomics and human factors. With NFC, what appears to be a good idea -- because you simply have to wave your phone to a lock to open it -- can sometime be a very bad idea when you truly analyse user behaviours and expectations."

A solution compatible for both new build and existing hotel locks Like Mobile Key by OpenWays, Mobile Key DUAL© with Pure NFC™ can be applied to existing hotel locks and/or major renovations. New locks that are factory made with the OpenWays module built in can be provided by the major electronic lock vendors.

A solution that works with ALL cell phones and ALL Smartphones With Mobile Key by OpenWays, all smartphones can receive an app and leverage any data network (2G, 3G, 4G and even the hotel WiFi network) to use Mobile Key. The same is true for hotel staff who use our “Mobile key for Master Keys” that offers much more security (real time master key management) and flexibility than traditional plastic cards.

A “green” solution that contributes to reduced waste Mobile Key is green. The more guests use their mobile phones as room keys, the less plastic key cards will end up spoiling the environment. Today everyone is concerned about the planet, and hoteliers want to allow their guests to contribute to waste reduction programs. Because Mobile Key by OpenWays is only made with data, it is the cleanest room key a hotelier can offer. "With Mobile Key DUAL© with Pure NFC™, we are making a giant step forward and confirming our global leadership in key management via Mobile phone," Metivier said. "Mobile Key DUAL© with Pure NFC™ is a solution that is going to be 'new for long time' and will be also applied to many other market segments outside the hospitality industry, such as residential, commercial buildings, university campuses, and more. "We would like to thank our partners Nordic Choice Hotels, Nokia, NXP, KABA SAFLOK and Ariane systems that are making these first 2012 deployments possible," he said.

About OpenWays | OpenWays is a global solution provider of mobile-based access-management and security solutions. With offices in Chicago, Las Vegas, Seoul and in Europe, OpenWays provides technology solutions allowing for the secure issuance and delivery of access rights and keys process via any cell phone operating on any network. The OpenWays solution is truly unique as it is built on the concept of credential dematerialization. The OpenWays mobile room key solution works on ALL the 6 billion cell phones in service in the world today. For more information, please contact Barb Worcester at +1 440 930-5770 or email barbw@prproconsulting.com. More information can be found by visiting www.OpenWays.com.

Whether service professionals are meeting with customers at home or sales associates are interacting with visitors at a retail location, the new Vantiv solution is part of Vantiv’s overall strategy to address customers’ growing mobile payment needs.

“Merchants and consumers are seeking greater mobility, control and timely access to data,” said Bill Weingart, Chief Product Officer, Vantiv. “We’ve teamed with Verizon to combine our payment and security expertise with Verizon’s ability to tailor development of mobile technologies to address those needs.”

The Vantiv mobile payment solution serves merchants who require mobility, convenience and security and addresses many business needs through a value-added suite of applications including accounting, payroll, workforce management, loyalty, inventory and customer relationship management (CRM). Having complete business control in a packaged, intuitive and flexible platform is a significant differentiator in the realm of tablets, and allows merchants to conduct data enriched customer interactions and transactions, anytime and anywhere.

JKrete Supply in Mason, Ohio is among the first Vantiv customers to participate in the field trial.

“This technology gives me more flexibility and makes it easier to serve my customers,” said Jay Rhoden, Owner, JKrete Supply. “Having the option of being mobile takes my business to a whole different level. I have everything I need at my fingertips. I can sell my products anywhere I go at any time. Vantiv tailored this product to meet my needs; it is clear they listened to customer demand.”

“Verizon, through our Private Application Store for Business, is leading the charge to work with innovative companies to develop industry-specific mobile solutions,” said Chandan Sharma, Vice President and Global Managing Director of Verizon’s financial services practice. “The ability to customize enterprise tablets and applications has been characterized as a potential ‘game changer,’ and we look forward to working with Vantiv and its customers to advance the playing field for mobile commerce.”

The capabilities were featured in a Tab Times article “The 10 most important tablet trends, products, and stories at CES 2012.”

For more information on Vantiv and to view more information on the Vantiv mobile payment solution visit us at www.vantiv.com .

The organization was formed three years ago, just now started talking about itself publicly and believes that free access to all this information could lead to "a new wave of innovation, education and research."

Open Web Advocate James Walker agrees: "An openly accessible archive of the web - that's not owned and controlled by Google - levels the playing field pretty significantly for research and innovation."

For example, Square will be adding in-depth merchant analytics to its iPad experience, allowing merchants to access information about which inventory is selling well, and what they can do to help make more money. Rabois tells me it’s about providing data insights from transactions and interactions, and giving these small businesses the tools that big businesses and retailers can afford. As for focusing just on the iPad, he says that if there is an Android tablet that has traction, Square will invest in a comparable Android tablet offering.

Another product area where Square will be continuing to focus its efforts is on Card Case, which is a virtual card case (via a mobile app) that consumers fill with ‘cards’ of all the merchants they visit and buy from who accept Square. These mobile cards include locations, merchant contact info, coupons, order and purchase history and more. Users can also use Card Case to ‘pay with their name’ and even enable hands-free payments.

Rabois explains that Card Case has seen major traction amongst consumers, and is on the same growth trajectory (in terms of usage and engagement) as Square was when it first launched to the public in 2009. One area where the startup will be innovating is personalization, and helping merchants to provide a more individual, personalized experience based on interactions to each customer.

As for transaction volumes, Rabois declined to give us any exact numbers but did say that transactions have hit way north of $11 million per day on a number of days in the past few months.

Armed with over $100 million in new funding, Square is also preparing for international expansion within the year, which was revealed at the time of Branson’s investment.

With the major product innovations set to take place this year, Rabois tells me that Square is also looking to triple its employee count in 2012. Currently, Square has a staff of 200 employees, up from around 40 at the same time in 2011. Most of the hiring will be of engineers, specializing in a variety of areas including iOS, Android, Ruby, back-end infrastructure and more.

In the end, Square’s 2012 goals are still aligned to the startup’s core principle: to help small businesses everywhere accept credit cards. Rabois says that there are still 26 million businesses in the U.S. that don’t accept credit cards, and he expects to convert a “huge fraction of them” this year. Stay tuned.