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Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

Apple Streamlines Real World Shopping With Mobile Self-Checkout [08Nov11] - 0 views

www.readwriteweb.com/...world_shopping_with_mobile.php

shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 08 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • For those of us who have grown accustomed to purchasing things from our laptops, tablets and smartphones, the experience of walking into a physical store and standing in line can get tiresome. It's hard to top the immediacy and convenience of online and mobile shopping. Yet, there are still plenty of items that are best purchased in person.
  • Apple hopes to bridge the gap between these digital and physical worlds. The company just released an update to its Apple Store app for iOS. Using the application, customers can not only purchase Apple products like they can on the Apple website, but they can now opt to pick them up in person at one of the company's many retail locations.
  • The app can also be used as a sort of self check-out scanner for certain accessories in Apple stores. Need a new case for your iPhone or a power adaptor for your MacBook? Now you can scan the item with your phone's camera, pay for it in the app and be on your way.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • This model offers a glimpse of one version of what the future of commerce may look like. E-commerce is infinitely more convenient for certain things, but sometimes consumers still need to see and try a product in person, whether it's a MacBook Air or a pair of jeans.
  • For retailers, offering a mobile app that alleviates some of the pain of real world, bricks-and-mortar shopping can provide a competitive advantage on digital platforms without cannibalizing physical in-store sales. Mix in location-based offers and coupons and the incentive for consumers to swing by the store is even greater.
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

Apple quietly begins iPhone as wallet in-store trials - Computerworld Blogs [08Nov11] - 0 views

blogs.computerworld.com/...hone_as_wallet_in_store_trials

shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 08 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • The mobile wallet is becoming a reality. Apple [AAPL] has already begun plotting to turn your iPhone into an iWallet which uses iTunes as your virtual bank.
  • The company this week begins rolling out its EasyPay payment system in US retail stores. Available inside Apple's own Apple Store for iOS app, EasyPay lets users purchase accessories at Apple retail stores just by scanning in the barcode and completing the transaction on their iOS device.
  • Payment is taken using your Apple ID. Users need to enter their ID and then payment is taken using the credit card associated with their iTunes account.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • This is a much bigger deal than it may seem, as World Payments Report 2011 informs: -- 15% of all card transactions will be mobile by 2013.-- 20 billion credit card transactions take place each year.
  • PayPal should be shaking in its boots. And as for Google Wallet? One day, you'll be paying for your public transit fees using iTunes and your iPhone.
  • There's three ways Apple may choose to create a payment infrastructure. It is possible there are more, but we'll settle on three for now:
  • -- NFC support in the iPhone 5Advantages: NFC is fully supported by the credit companies.Disadvantages: NFC isn't yet ready for prime time, but is expected to reach a much wider market by 2013.
  • -- Bluetooth-based payments: Advantages: It is possible now to use Bluetooth to make secure payment exchanges.Disadvantages: There's no agreed financial Bluetooth-based transfer standard, meaning there's no back-up or insurance in case of fraud.
  • -- Over-the-airAdvantages: Does it matter if you wave your device across a terminal? Why not pay from where you are? You could buy goods and services in this way.Disadvantages: I would argue that Apple's devices would still require RFID tags in order that payment status be easily verified. If RFID is required, then NFC makes sense.
  • What makes Apple's iTunes approach effective is that by using its existing credit service as a bank, it achieves an immediate potential user base of hundreds of millions of people, while also offering an extra layer of protection between banks and customers. If fraud takes place, Apple's insurance should protect a customer, reducing the risk to the banks.
  • Tie these NFC systems up with Apple's other in-development mobile technologies and there's lots of potential scenarios.
  • Some statistics may be of interest:-- 50,000 Dutch nurses now use NFC  to track and manage home healthcare visits.-- The Museum of London already offers interactive NFC services.-- Over 60% of manufacturers plan to put NFC in cars.
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

An Infusion of Money for Soundtracking, a Social Music App - NYTimes.com [08Nov11] - 0 views

bits.blogs.nytimes.com/...undtracking-a-social-music-app

apps sharing geolocation investment music

shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 09 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • SoundTracking, a social mobile application that allows people to create “musical postcards” that can then be shared with friends on social sites,  announced Tuesday that it had received $4.75 million in financing.
  • To use SoundTracking, people take pictures, log their locations and attach the songs they are listening to at that moment.
  • “We are making sharing the core experience and discovery is a bi-product.”
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  • SoundTracking is currently the most shared music service on Twitter
  • The financing is being led by Accel Partners, a venture firm that also invested in the popular music service Spotify. True Ventures and SoftBank Capital also contributed money.
  • Sameer Gandhi, with Accel Partners, said in an e-mail that he had chosen to invest in SoundTracking because it offered a “rich, emotional experience on mobile devices.” Mr. Gandhi said he viewed the combining of geolocation technology and music as a next step in what he called a ”capture and share culture.”
  • SoundTracking was developed by Schematic labs, a mobile app incubator in San Francisco, which focuses on social and entertainment applications. SoundTracking is the first app released by the company. SoundTracking previously received $1.1 million in seed financing from True Ventures, Google Ventures and AOL Ventures.
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

Clover breaks stealth with a powerhouse team to shake up peer-to-peer payments - The Next Web [08Nov11] - 0 views

thenextweb.com/...shake-up-peer-to-peer-payments

payments p2p opportunities market apps API qr-codes platform trending

shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 09 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • The space for mobile payments has heated up really fast over the past couple of years. One thing that we’ve started to see more of lately are applications that focus more on peer-to-peer payments versus something that you’d use to see a business. With PayPal implementing NFC, Dwolla providing software solutions to hardware problems and Venmo firmly in between all of it, the space is getting crowded quite fast.
  • Funds can be added to Clover via any credit card, but not directly from your bank or PayPal.
  • To withdraw, you can do immediate transfers to your PayPal, or a bank transfer in 2-3 days. Obviously, if you’re using PayPal, you’re going to get a fee tacked onto transactions. Bank transfers might have them as well, depending on your particular bank’s methods.
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  • Requests for money work the same way. You can choose to ask in person, which creates a QR code, or you can send a request to one of your contacts. Again, SMS and email-based requests appear to be coming at a later time.
  • If you want to Pay, there are 2 ways to go about it. You can either pay a contact directly, or you can create a QR code that is then scanned by another Clover user to accept funds from you. This makes it easy to split a bill at a restaurant, for instance, but it also leaves the door open to long-distance transactions. In time, according to some grayed-out options in the UI, you’ll also be able to pay via SMS or email.
  • We do know that there’s an API in the works, which will bring payment options to more apps and websites.
  • “…it’s not about what you can’t do with PayPal but rather what you don’t do with PayPal.  Over the past decade, PayPal has done a great job transforming how people think about payments, but most PayPal users don’t routinely use the service to pay each other for lunch, drinks, etc. from their mobile phone.”
  • Presently Clover is sitting on a $5.5 million investment from Andreesen Horowitz, Sutter Hill Ventures and Morado Venture Partners.
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