Open Intelligence / Web 3X (Social + Mobile)

Some highlights of the report include: Details on who’s using gamification across the enterprise The three pillars of enterprise gamification The six elements of sustainable engagement Sustainable behaviors to drive desired business outcomes The Seven Deadly Sins to Optimize Gamification Design The top gamified business processes for the enterprise (see Figure 1)

Designing your gamification models?  What enterprise business processes will you gamify first? next?   Ready to turbo charge your next generation customer experience?  Have you tested out iActionable, CrowdTwist or the 3B’s (i.e. Badgeville, Bigdoor, and Bunchball?  Ready to here how you can apply the white arts of the 7 Virtues to work?  Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) com.

But mobile has its own limitations. Facebook provides a single venue for developers to build, grow and monetize their games, while the dueling mobile platforms have weaker social features and additional development costs; iOS also has the 30% tax on virtual goods sales, same as Facebook.

When Nokia launched its new Lumia 710 and 800 handsets in October, it was widely expected that these devices would be the first Windows Phones to support NFC. Nokia had all but confirmed this itself when, last year, it stated that all of its 2011 smartphones would include NFC support.

Keith Varty, Nokia’s head of apps and partnerships, stated: “We need to get a [Windows Phone] device into the marketplace with NFC capabilities, and when we do we can really start to showcase our services.”

So it looks like we’re still at the stage of NFC’s development where the best is yet to come, but with the pace of development finally accelerating across the industry, it appears that we won’t have too much longer to wait. How long Windows Phone users have to wait for NFC is a different matter - with the confirmation that the technology is already supported by the OS, the decision to launch devices with it on board now rests solely with the manufacturers.

In 2012, there will be more NFC-enabled Android devices. For now, only the Samsung Nexus S and a few others have mobile wallet capabilities. Lest we forget PayPal, it is important to note that it recently launched an Android app that allows for money transfer via NFC. 3. Carrier Billing Is Alive And Kicking Carrier billing allows users to pay for apps on their mobile phone bill instead of using a credit card or a third-party mobile payments service to pay at the time of purchase. This payments system is moving right along. In April, Spring joined T-Mobile and AT&T to support carrier billing in the Android Market. Mobile payments company BOKU went live for Android app developers in June. It began offering carrier billing on 230 operators in 56 countries worldwide. eBay purchased mobile payments company Zong in July, and integrated it into PayPal. Zong allows users to make mobile purchases through carrier billing. PaymentOne, another leader in carrier billing, lets users pay with their phone numbers, and validates transactions via text.

Google’s problem was that the company and its two consumer electronics partners built early-adopter devices that were supposed to appeal to the mainstream consumer — and in turn, didn’t do right for either.

I was once again a little underwhelmed when the new Honeycomb version of Google TV hit my review unit

the availability of apps made a big difference.

many are very enthusiastic

about the apps they could install on it and the ways they could customize their Google TV experience

Combine that with its huge potential for growth in the CE space, and you’ll see why Google TV very likely wins the smart TV race.

Five reasons why Google TV will be huge

Customization.

Third-party app stores.

Multitasking.

The CE market.

Cable boxes.

Even if Schmidt is wrong with his assessment, Google always has a backup plan: The company bought Motorola Mobility earlier this year, and as part of the deal also acquired Motorola’s set-top box business. That makes it all but certain that Motorola will eventually ship Google TV-powered cable boxes, which could bring the platform to millions of legacy TV sets.

San Francisco announced earlier this week it was partnering with PayByPhone to enable 30,000 parking meters with NFC support. People can tap their phone against a parking meter and call up a parking application that identifies the parking location and allows the driver to enter his or her desired parking time and complete the transaction. The actual payment happens inside the app with a stored credit card, but the technology provides a short cut to the transaction.

Intel and MasterCard have teamed up to enable future Intel-powered laptops to work with PayPass enabled MasterCard credit cards. Users will be able to enter in their payment credentials for online purchases by tapping their card on their computer instead of storing the information on their machine or entering it manually.

Personal contact and content sharing has become one of the emerging uses for NFC. RIM in October introduced BlackBerry Tag, which will enable users of NFC phones to exchange contact information, documents, URLs, photos and other multimedia content with a tap of their phones. Google has enabled a similar a solution with Android Beam, which will work on NFC-enabled phones. This can serve as a Bump-like way to pass back and forth information quickly.

Access card maker HID Global announced a trial with Arizona State University in September in which students were provided NFC-enabled phones, enabling them to gain physical access to buildings. All the participants were able to enter residence halls with their phones, and some were also allowed to open individual room doors using unique digital key and PINs.

The Museum of London and its sister institution, the Museum of London Docklands launched a project in August that allows visitors to tap their NFC-enabled phone at exhibits and gain more information, buy tickets to future exhibits or check in, follow or “like” the museums on social services. It’s part of Nokia’s NFC Hub effort to help businesses set up NFC campaigns.

T-Mobile partnered with Meridian Health and iMPak Health in October on a new SleepTrak sleep monitoring system, a wearable device with an NFC-equipped card. Users can upload their sleep data to an NFC-enabled Nokia astound with a tap.

Nokia and NFC Danmark launched NFC-enabled smart poster campaign in Telia stores in Denmark, enabling Nokia N9 users to download mobile apps by tapping on a poster. The two companies also introduced what Danmark called the world’s first NFC-enabled vending machine.

The winning application of the WIMA NFC USA conference in San Francisco earlier this month was a project called Think&Go, which is being tested by French supermarket chain Groupe Casino. Think&Go allows visually impaired and elderly shoppers to call up large text information on products by tapping NFC tags on store shelves.

These are just a sample of the projects and real applications leveraging NFC. As you can see, none of them are actual mobile wallets. The biggest thing they provide is a real short cut to information and actions that can happen without much work. Many of these things can be done through QR codes, bumping, Bluetooth or other methods, but NFC provides a very simple and often elegant way to get through the process.

Also, in some of these cases, what’s also nice is that since they aren’t trying to conduct sensitive transactions, they don’t need to access the secure element inside a phone. That could be a limiting factor in the roll out of NFC, because the owners of the secure element, often the carriers, don’t seem to be in a hurry to enable a lot of other NFC payments systems. But with a host of other non payment uses emerging, users won’t have to wait to find out if their digital wallet is enabled on their particular phone. There might be other ways they can experience the power of NFC first. That will help in just teaching people the practice of tapping for information, transactions and access.

We’re still very early in the NFC game and the phones are just now trickling out in the U.S. But there’s going to be a much bigger flow of NFC-equipped phones starting next year. It’ll be these broader applications that might convince users that the technology has merit.

San Francisco announced earlier this week it was partnering with PayByPhone to enable 30,000 parking meters with NFC support. 

Intel and MasterCard have teamed up to enable future Intel-powered laptops to work with PayPass enabled MasterCard credit cards.

Personal contact and content sharing has become one of the emerging uses for NFC.

Access card maker HID Global announced a trial with Arizona State University in September in which students were provided NFC-enabled phones, enabling them to gain physical access to buildings.

The Museum of London and its sister institution, the Museum of London Docklands launched a project in August that allows visitors to tap their NFC-enabled phone at exhibits and gain more information, buy tickets to future exhibits or check in, follow or “like” the museums on social services.

T-Mobile partnered with Meridian Health and iMPak Health in October on a new SleepTrak sleep monitoring system, a wearable device with an NFC-equipped card.

Many of these things can be done through QR codes, bumping, Bluetooth or other methods, but NFC provides a very simple and often elegant way to get through the process.

We’re still very early in the NFC game and the phones are just now trickling out in the U.S. But there’s going to be a much bigger flow of NFC-equipped phones starting next year. It’ll be these broader applications that might convince users that the technology has merit.

"This is one of the largest deployments of NFC technology in the United States and shows the practical benefits this technology can deliver in terms of ease of use and convenience. There has been a lot of hype around NFC recently and PayByPhone is pleased to now put the technology in the field for real world applications," said Neil Podmore, VP of Business Development at PayByPhone. "We expect this to help kick start the more widespread adoption and understanding of the practical benefits of NFC in 2012."

The installation of mobile electronic payment systems is already catching the imagination of cities and towns around the world. With a proven role of providing parking authorities with efficient, easier-to-manage and cost effective solutions also comes real-time data to fine tune parking policies and provide parking guidance systems.

Analyst firm Juniper Research predicted that consumers around the world could generate as much as $50 billion in sales through NFC-based mobile payments by 2014. The potential for this nascent technology is huge, according to Jupiter.

PayByPhone, the largest provider of payment systems for parking across North America, has ongoing contracts in more than 60 cities, towns and universities including Miami; Dallas; Vancouver, BC; London, Paris and now San Francisco, the largest installation in the United States. Worldwide, the company handles more than 55,000 transactions per day. The company experienced rapid growth in FY 2011, logging an estimated 8 million transactions over the first six month period.

Retailers have been particularly aggressive in pursuing mobile strategies this year, with 37 percent operating specially-tailored mobile websites (compared to 12 percent in 2010) according to Acquity Group.

So what’s in store for mobile marketing in 2012? Here are our top trends to watch:

Mobile Trend # 1 – Smartphones to Overtake Other Mobile by 2012 

Smartphone units sold worldwide in 2009 will grow 14.5% from 2008 levels, according to a forecast by Infonetics.  READ MORE

Mobile Trend # 2 - Text Messaging Will Rise

Mobile Trend # 6 – Increased Mobile Spending 

Mobile Trend # 3 – Social Networking Site Access

Social networking sites will get more exposure on mobile phones.

Text messaging will rise to a projected 8 trillion SMS in 2012. This is a rise of about a billion from the 6.9 billion SMS sent in 2011.

Mobile Trend # 4 – Rise in Social Games

Mobile Trend # 5 – Location-Based Marketing

Sounds surprising, right? That novel technology can be achieved by Wi-Fi, RFID, and mobile phone tracking.

Facebook’s official page sites, there are currently 350 million active users that access Facebook on their mobile phones.

There will be a large increase in spending by SMBs on mobile advertising.  The $1.6 billion figure garnered last 2010 more than doubled to $3.3 billion in 2011, and 2012 is predicted to double that enormous figure again.

Mobile Trend # 7 – More Video on Smartphones

Videos will become a greater trend in mobile marketing. 

Mobile Trend # 8 - Mobile Money Transfers

More currency will exchange through mobile phones. 2011 saw $86.1 billion move around the world in about 141 million exchanges.

To sum up, the prosperity of 2011 for mobile marketing will carry over to 2012, with possibly more frontiers to open up.

Nayar says the developers involved actually reached out to PayPal to see if the integration would make sense. He adds that over the next few months PayPal will be ‘many’ different proximity-based payments technologies (including NFC) and exploring numerous partnership opportunities.

“PayPal isn’t betting the farm on NFC,” he explains. But he says that the payments giant is interested in using the technology as one option for in-store payments. As we’ve reported in the past, PayPal is dabbling in NFC but still believes mass adoption is years away.

While the aforementioned offers have expired, merchants can set up new Foursquare check-in deals via Amex's "Go Social" self-service center for SMBs.

Here's how the Amex-Foursquare marriage works for consumers: Sync Amex card with Foursquare account online. Check in at a location. Tap a "redeem offer" button. Pay with Amex card. Get a Foursquare push notification about the money-back reward (see image) within moments after the card is swiped by the merchant.

Swipely has begun working with 150 merchants in Boston, its launch market. The start-up offers consumers the chance to sync a credit card to its loyalty program. From there, whenever they spend money at a participating merchant, they can receive a reward or discount. Swipely supplies local businesses with point-of-sale signage and materials to promote the program.

Angus Davis, Swipely CEO, said his product should attract consumers and businesses alike because of its usability. There's no need for a smartphone app, much less a printed voucher, he said, in order for shoppers to get rewarded for retail store visits.

"Consumers don't have to change the way they behave in order to check in," Davis said. "Nor do they have to change the way they pay by scanning a QR code [or] using newfangled technology. Our program employs technology that everyone already has and uses."

He added, "For the local merchant, the program doesn't require any changes in the store. They don't have to upgrade hardware, install software, implement any special cards, or re-train their staff."

The 33-year-old CEO said his company would expand to New York, San Francisco, and other major cities in the first half of the upcoming year. "I do think that 2012 is a very ripe time for disruption," Davis said, "especially as the payment space interacts with Main Street merchants."

Other noteworthy developments as digital wallets came into focus during 2011: March/April:Groupon and LivingSocial launch "GrouponNow" and "Instant Deals", respectively, which allow consumers to buy time-sensitive offers with one click on their smart phones. To use the mobile commerce feature, users need to input their credit cards into their daily deals accounts. May 9: Scvngr struck a partnership with American Express to make redeeming LevelUp deals easier for consumers. Amex members who buy the deals need only use their cards while making a purchase to get the discount. As is the case with Swipely, it's not necessary to show the store clerk a paper voucher, barcode, or message on a mobile screen. May 26: Google introduced Google Wallet, which lets consumers pay for Google Offers and other items through their Google account. The Wallet mobile app works with credit card users for Citi, MasterCard, and First Data. Aug. 1: Verizon partnered with Amex to serve as the mobile carrier's digital wallet platform. The telecom was one of the first in its competitive space to create its own digital wallet.

The second half of the NFC conundrum is that there are a lot of hands reaching for the supposed pile of money that NFC payments will enable. Look at Google's announcement of the Wallet product. Or the ISIS partnership between Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T. Google is partnering with Mastercard, CitiBank, Sprint, FirstData, Verifone, VivoTech (the NFC partner), Hypercom, Ingenico and NXP (another NFC partner). All of these large companies are going to want a slice of the pie. Where does that leave the retailers? You know, the ones that are actually trying to make money with good and services? Sadly, on the outside of the circle. The carriers are the biggest culprits, wanting to take as much as 50% of transaction revenue because it is "going over their pipes." The financial services companies will be happy taking their normal rates in the 1.75% to 3% range as long as there is a promise that more people will pay electronically (read: sans cash). Between retailers, partners and infrastructure, NFC has years to go before it will be viable for all parties involved.

What will happen in this time frame? Think about the so-called "4G" technology WiMax. The technology is already becoming antiquated with LTE and all the major carriers are working on the next version after that. Sprint is keeping a hybrid of WiMax and LTE going forward but overall it is a tech that died before it even matured. NFC may be the same. What if there are massive leaps in quantum teleportation in the next several years? Does NFC become the WiMax of the payment world?

Maturation Of Direct Carrier Billing The "I do not see myself buying a fridge with this" line comes mostly from the direct carrier folks. Direct carrier billing is the perfect area for micro-payments and payments that stem from ease of use. Think of parking. If you could pay for your parking on the street with your phone, would that convenience be worth an extra couple of cents on the dollar to you? The direct to carrier ecosystem has evolved to the point where it actually makes sense for offline and online use. Zong (acquired by eBay for PayPal integration), PaymentOne and Boku are the leaders in this space. PaymentOne has processed $5 billion in mobile payments and lets users pay with their phone numbers, validating transactions via text. Zong allows that capability as well. Payment One's "One Care" features, announced last week at CTIA, makes direct to carrier billing safe and secure. Transparency is important in mobile commerce because consumers do not really trust their phones to handle their money quite yet. The most important aspect of direct to carrier billing now is that the revenue mechanism has been flipped. It used to be that merchants only got some 40% or less of payments while the carriers and partners took the rest. Even with high margin transactions, that is unacceptable. Today, direct to carrier billing provides the merchants with more than 80% of the revenue, sometimes nearly 95%.

The Dongle World: Smartphones As Credit Card Readers Square, VeriSign and Intuit are pushing hard into the dongle department. Jumio is doing the same thing, just without the dongle. There is not much to be said about the dongle world that we have not already touched on at ReadWriteWeb outside of the notion that it is bringing easy credit card readers to the mobile masses.

The dongle competitors are not worried about what is happening in the ecosytem because it does not really touch their core business. For instance, PayPal does not see NFC or dongles infringing on its business in any way, shape or form. As Laura Chambers, PayPal's head of mobile, said in a recent interview, "we are not worried about much in the ways of competition. There is a lot of white space in the industry for horizontal movement."

What Is PayPal Really Doing? In the interview with Chambers, the first question I asked was, "Why does it seem like PayPal has become a "me too" operator in mobile payments?" It is a fair question, even if Chambers balked to acknowledge that PayPal has been in "me too" mode for the last year or so. PayPal has ignored the dongle movement and NFC is not on its radar as a technology it feels it needs to integrate. "What is the difference between a tap versus a swipe?" Chambers asked. "We are working with what works in the current infrastructure ... We have sat down with consumers and merchants to work with them on what they want." PayPal is growing sideways because there is not a ton of room right now to grow vertically. PayPal will get into NFC solutions when the time is appropriate. Its strategy now is to create as much flexibility for consumers as possible through its mobile wallet program. PayPal's stance is data driven - the company can track when and what consumers buy from mobile phones and tablets. Hence, PayPal is focusing on the shopping end of the spectrum, as opposed to a pure payments play. "60% of people buy more and spend more on mobile," Chambers said. "But, we see that people are not really buying different things on mobile ... the No. 1 driver of growth in mobile payments is boredom." That fits in well with what PayPal sees as "couch commerce." They released a study recently saying that mobile shopping is going to boom this holiday season. As such, PayPal is ready to deploy an end-to-end solution for merchants and consumers to reward loyalty and provide deals and offers along with digital receipts. PayPal believes that it has a lot of room to grow in mobile through these types of horizontal movements. We are also seeing this on a non-mobile front with eBay partnering with Facebook and the Open Graph API and the new X.Commerce initiative that consolidates the PayPal, Zong, Magento, RedLaser and Milo technologies. The company is calling it an "open commerce ecosystem."

Future Of Mobile Payments This article is the first in a series of the trends in mobile payments that ReadWriteWeb will be working on in the next several months. There are a lot of questions and the answers are just beginning to emerge. Who are the winners in the space? Are retail shops in danger of "becoming expensive fronts for online shopping," as Chambers said in the interview? Does NFC really have potential to disrupt offline payments or is it just cool technology? These questions and more are what we will be tackling in the months to come.

That’s where the $10 of free pizza comes in. Merchants can add rewards to LevelUp that are already waiting for customers the first time that they use the app. Customers earn free credit at that merchant every time they spend money there using the app. It functions like a loyalty card.

But is that enough to get people scanning their phones instead of their credit cards? T-Mobile is betting on it. They’ve partnered with the startup to provide merchants with scanning hardware that replaces the merchant app and makes it easier to accept LevelUp payments. Since launching in October, the startup has accumulated 100,000 users and teamed up with more than 1,000 merchants in San Francisco, New York, Boston and Philadelphia.

With more than 350 locations, Villa Pizza is their biggest partner merchant yet. If you had plans to be in Time Square on New Years Eve, would LevelUp’s $10 deal persuade you to check it out with your phone?