Open Intelligence / Web 3X (Social + Mobile)

American Express and Zynga are teaming up to make it easier than ever to turn your money into virtual cows, tractors, and whatever else the folks at the multibillion dollar social gaming company can cook up. And this time, it doesn’t involve actually forking over cash — at least, not directly.

You see, American Express is now allowing its customers to exchange their ‘membership rewards’ points for virtual goods and/or ‘game cards’ that can be redeemed for Zynga’s in-game currency. These points are earned as American Express customers use their cards — the AmEx site says that you get one point for “virtually every dollar you spend on your Card.”

In addition to these virtual goods, users can buy game cards, with denominations starting at $2 for 200 points and running up to $50 for 5000 points (you can get both physical and virtual game cards). Do the math and you’ll notice that this is 100 points for every $1 of in-game credit. This works out to 1% of your spendings, which is a pretty standard ‘cash back’ amount seen in credit card rewards programs (some programs will do better than 1% for certain items, like hotels).

American Express is going all in on the daily deals business, striking a deal with Facebook that is similar to the one it already has with Foursquare. Through a new Facebook app called “Link, Like, Love,” AmEx cardholders can link their cards to their Facebook accounts just like they can already link their cards to their Foursquare accounts. Once they do so they will get a dashboard of deals from brands such as Whole Foods, Dunkin’ Donuts, Virgin America, and Sports Authority. (These offers are different than Facebook Deals, which Facebook sources itself)

Unlike Groupon or LivingSocial, these AmEx deals don’t require anyone to pre-purchase anything or present any coupons to merchants. One of the biggest challenges for the daily deals industry is how to measure how many offers are actually redeemed at thousands of different participating businesses. But AmEx has an advantage here in that it is already a payment network that is set up and accepted in businesses large and small around the world. All people have to do is buy the deal item with their AmEx card and they will be credited the deal amount. The Facebook twist is that the deals you see are influenced by what you and your friends “like” on the Web using the Facebook like button.

Although many of the deals at launch are with national brands, AmEx is also leveraging its relationships with smaller local merchants. It is a launching a program aimed at them called Go Social which allows merchants to manage deals across both Facebook and Foursquare, with other social networks to be added in the future. Business owners will be able to create their own coupon-less deals in a self-serve manner that are triggered whenever someone with a linked account buys a deal item. Self-serve has been a challenge so far with local merchants, but AmEx can market to them through its existing channels.

PayPal’s mobile payment system has gone live at 51 Home Depot stores in the US.

The eBay-owned company has also reported that its mobile payment volume reached $4bn in 2011.

PayPal’s new mobile payment system, which was trialled by eBay CEO John Donahoe, allows users to pay at the till by entering their mobile phone number and PIN.

Foursquare is expanding its relationship with American Express to provide local deals to people who sync their cards to their Foursquare accounts. AmEx did a trial at SXSW, and that went well enough that it is rolling out the deals more broadly.

The discounts, such as $20 off a $50 purchase at Sports Authority, are automatically applied to your AmEx account when you check in via Foursquare to a participating merchant before a purchase. Everyone in local commerce is trying to figure out how to close the loop between deals and payments. Google thinks NFC chips in Android phones will be the answer in the form of a Google Wallet. Whereas Groupon is trying out instant mobile deals with Groupon Now. By tying its specials to a credit card, Foursquare is closing the payment loop with something everyone already carries around in their wallets.

Once companies can tie mobile ads or deals to payments, they will be able to measure directly the sales generated by these mobile promotions. And one day that could potentially be a huge new business. But for now, it’s making absolutely zilch for Foursquare, which remains a revenue-free zone. As the New York Times reports: Foursquare will not be receiving any revenue from the American Express deal

Jack Dorsey’s Square was unveiled last December as an innovative way to let people quickly and easily accept physical credit card payments from their mobile phone.

Square is ideal for taking money at political fundraisers for several reasons.

A local flower cart in San Francisco is using Square to take payments from customers. Denim, a jeans store in New York is using Square to take payments from shoppers. We even used Square at this year’s Crunchies to raise money for the UCSF Foundation.

Nonetheless, consumers should keep a close eye on bank statements to ensure everything is correct.

"Your bank can basically turn back any transaction within 60 days," said Rob Drozdowski, a regulatory specialist with America's Community Bankers, a trade association of community banks. "It's important to review your statements within 60 days and get back to your financial institutions with any issues."

Check regulations, which date back to the 1940s, set no time limit for the bank's reimbursement and don't mandate an investigation. If the bank refuses to investigate your claim on a standard check transaction, your only recourse is to sue.

In the fourth quarter of 2011, 22pc of businesses polled in the sector were investing in social media marketing. This figure fell to 8.5pc in the first quarter of 2012 and to 6pc by the second quarter. Pearlfinders, a major business research company, spoke to more than 5,000 marketeers around the world about their budgets. “This represents an interesting about-turn. We saw investment in social media increase steadily throughout 2011, to reach the highest levels ever by the end of the year. However, as financial services brands embraced new methods for communicating with customers, they opened themselves up to criticism and negative sentiment,” said Anthony Cooper, Pearlfinders managing director.

putting spending on hold until they have developed a clearer picture of how social media can be harnessed to improve their brands.”

conversations directly linking to brands near impossible to control

the Facebook newsfeed on your mobile phone would deliver to you everything you want to know: what news to digest, what movies to watch, where to eat and honeymoon, what kind of crib to buy for your first born. It would all be based on what you and your Facebook friends liked. Facebook’s algorithms would be refined so that it would all be sent to you — “pushed,” in Mr. Purdy’s words. You wouldn’t have to search for it.

What he didn’t have to say was that in this future world, you wouldn’t need Google. How would Facebook profit exactly? “There is a tremendous amount of value in here because we’re providing the user experience value,” he said. “That means users come back to Facebook. They come back again and again and again. That allows us to show advertising.”

The highest scoring “influencers” like to think they deliver widespread impact with their followings. Every single book I’ve read by a blogger on influence claims this. In actuality, that influence lies closer to home. When real researchers parse influence we get a different story than the blogger myth propagated by social scoring. Instead, we see that true influence comes from those who are closest to us in our on and offline social networks, our peers.

But generally, their writings serve as a credibility point for readers, just like Consumer Reports, and nothing more. Why? Because relationships — true meaningful interactions beyond social platitudes (Like, love, you rock, etc.) — don’t scale after a certain point.

By selecting our friends, we’re also choosing to be influenced by their ideas, beliefs and behavior systems