Open Intelligence / Web 3X (Social + Mobile)

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt caused some raised eyebrows last week when he claimed that by next summer “the majority of the televisions you see in stores” will come with Google TV.

Okay, he may have the timing wrong, but I think that Google will absolutely come out on top of this. It will dominate the smart TV world much in the same way it now dominates the smartphone world.

I liked some of the ideas behind the first iteration of Google TV, but like everyone else, was disappointed by the execution

The arrival of NFC in handsets has been talked about since the world was young, but big steps are finally being taken towards making its availability more widespread. Samsung’s new Galaxy Nexus device supports NFC through Google Wallet; RIM and Telefónica recently announced a new trial of the technology in Europe next year; and America’s big three networks have formed the ISIS alliance to enable a common architecture for NFC mobile payments.

There have been rumours that Microsoft is working on an NFC payment platform to rival Google Wallet, while this week, it was suggested that NFC will soon play a part in how Microsoft devices communicate with each other. Coleman didn’t spill the beans on any specifics, but did say that “in the not too distant future, there are some exciting things that will be coming through with NFC from Microsoft.”

In an interview on Windows Phone with TechRadar, Will Coleman, product manager at Microsoft UK, said that “NFC is supported by it, but needs to be enabled by the OEM. So if any [manufacturer] wants to enable it, that can be done by all means.”

So, HP is now distancing itself from webOS under the guise of making it open source. It presumably could not find a company willing to buy the platform so now it is taking the only avenue that is available. HP now has very little way to make money off of webOS. As a licensed open source project, it is not going to be able to sell licenses to the platform, the way Microsoft does with Windows Phone. Nor does it have Google's clout in the advertising world to monetize webOS the way Android does. HP must pin its hope on the notion that developers, OEMs and carriers will pay HP for its software and cloud services in the development of webOS applications.

Herein lays the problem. As an open source project, developers will be able to choose whatever cloud and development tools they want. The fact that webOS is so closely tied to the Web does not help either because there are a variety of solutions to make HTML5 Web apps outside of HP. From the startup realm with companies like appMobi, Sencha, Appcelerator to enterprise developer companies like IBM and SAP, HP has no way to tie the development process to itself in an open source environment. Google has accepted this fact and lets the Android ecosystem do as it pleases because as long as people have Android devices in their hands, Google stands to make money from when and how they use the Web and native apps on the device.

As with all things Internet, the future of mobile payments is going to be fragmented, making the promise of a digital wallet on your phone a lot less exciting. Having a phone act as a credit card makes things faster, more convenient and might even lead to more bargains. But the way things are panning out, only people who meet very specific cell phone, bank, and credit card company criteria can join in on the fun. Just today, Verizon blocked Google Wallet from its phones, reports The Wall Street Journal's Amir Efrati and Anton Troianovski. So for those with multiple credit cards, or without a Citi Master Card, Google Wallet can't replace a wallet, giving it a major utility handicap.

As of right now, Google's mobile payment tech only works on Sprint phones with Citi Bank Master Cards. That applies to a very specific set of people. Of course, Google doesn't have the only digital wallet replacement out there. For everyone else, there's Verizon, who has teamed up with T-Mobile and  At&T to work on its version, Isis, which will begin trials next year, note Efrati and Troianovski. And Visa too is apparently in the works for its own mobile payments system, they add. We also can't forget third party apps like Square, Venmo and ZipPay, which allow users to pay others who have the app using stored credit card information. This almost works as a replacement for the wallet, and would theoretically work better than Google Wallet, if only every single place everywhere accepted Square payments -- but they don't. 

So we have two types of fragmentation happening in the mobile payments world. With these "wallet" payment systems, like Google Wallet and Visa's mystery service, the service is only as useful as having that single credit card. And then the system is fracturing on a retailer level. Even with Google Wallet, only stores with the compatible card reader accept it; same with the Square-like services. While the number of retailers accepting Square has grown, as this chart posted by The Atlantic's Alexis Madrigal shows, it can't become a wallet replacement unless every single retailer has it. The same applies to Google Wallet: Not every retailer has the capabilities. Like we've seen with Netflix and streaming movies, the services are nice supplements to cable. But not yet a replacement because they all have somethings but no one has all things. The same can be applied to mobile payments. They all can be used with some credit cards and at some retailers, but we won't leave our wallets at home until we get a cord-cutting equivalent. For now, users either have to load a smorgasbord of mobile payment apps, or settle for the current half-hearted solutions. 

The overall market for virtual goods in the US is headed towards $2.9 billion for 2012, according to the Inside Virtual Goods report. That’s up from $2.2 billion this year, and $1.6 billion in 2010.

Virtual goods on Facebook are continuing to comprise more than half of that, going from $835 million in 2010 to $1.2 billion this year to $1.6 billion next year. The gains each year are around $400 million, which means growth is going from 50% down to around 35%. While the report doesn’t break out company-specific numbers publicly, Zynga’s pre-IPO filings indicate it made more than $300 million last quarter. Assuming that number stays around the same, look for Zynga to continue to its historical dominance with about 75% of the Facebook virtual goods market.

Mobile has also been coming into its own in the last 18 months, report co-author Charles Hudson tells me. The report estimates that mobile virtual goods (for games only, not including other digital media like iTunes songs) made $350 million this year, and will grow to $500 million next year.

Dunkin’ Donuts is rewarding loyal customers with prizes in a new campaign that uses Foursquare and Facebook Places. “Get GifteD’D” runs through to December 23rd at Dunkin’ Donuts locations in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Users can check-in up to three times each day (at least an hour apart) for the chance to win prizes.

If they win, they are sent an email with instructions about how to redeem their prize. Each time someone checks-in, they are also entered into a sweepstake to win the grand prize of a $1,000 gift card and a Travelpro luggage package.

Through the campaign, Dunkin’ Donuts is giving away more than 1,780 instant prizes including gift cards from 1800Flowers, Mountain Creek and Pinstripe Bowl, coffee and Dunkin’ Donuts merchandise. Cathy Chavenet, New York-based field marketing manager at Dunkin’ Donuts, said: Mobile check-in programs like Facebook and Foursquare present an opportunity to reward Dunkin’ Donuts’ loyal fans by doing something they are already doing – visiting Dunkin’ Donuts. The goal of the check-in, Get GifteDD program in particular, is to give our loyal guests a chance to win great prizes every day, just by checking into Facebook or Foursquare while at our restaurants in New York.

Gamification describes a series of design principles, processes and systems used to influence, engage and motivate individuals, groups and communities to drive behaviors and effect desired outcomes. Originating from the video game industry, many of these pioneering concepts now play a key role in driving incentive and behavior management for both brands in the consumer world and internal scenarios in the workplace. Enterprise gamification is a user experience (UX) and consumerization of IT (CoIT) trend that will take the market by storm in 2012. Constellation believes that by 2013, more than 50 percent of all social business initiatives will include an enterprise gamification component.

In interviews with 55 early adopters of enterprise gamification, Constellation identifies the three core pillars that include measurable action, reputation and incentives. By creating triggers through both monetary and non-monetary incentives among customers, employees, partners, suppliers and other interested parties, organizations can secure sustainable engagement and drive business outcomes such as improved marketing response from external communities, sustained long-term customer loyalty, increased collaboration among internal teams, or enriched onboarding, delivering success with new hires, partners, and customers.

Enterprise gamification requires an application of psychology and behavioral economics to incentivize outcomes. Because enterprise gamification maps closely to human behavior, organizations will want to follow Constellation’s best practices in appealing to the “Seven Deadly Sins” for gamification design.

As part of BlackBerry Dev Con Asia taking place in Singapore right now, Wikitude has announced additional support for smartphones running on the BlackBerry 6. Bringing Wikitude to devices running BlackBerry 6 will help answer considerable demand expressed by users who want to experience Wikitude’s extensive content offering including more than 2,000 content Worlds consisting of approx. 150 million places around the globe. Users of the BlackBerry Bold 9700, 9780,9788 and BlackBerry Torch 9800 smartphones can download Wikitude on BlackBerry App World starting today.

After being crowned “The Most Addictive Social App Using the BBM Social Platform” at BlackBerry DevCon Americas in October, Wikitude most recently won the BlackBerry® EMEA Innovation Award for “Best BBM Connected App”, awarded in Alicante 1stDecember. “Extending the Wikitude platform to millions of BlackBerry 6 smartphone users will make the BBM experience richer than ever before. We are extremely happy to finally bring this version of Wikitude to even more BlackBerry smartphone users,” says Martin Herdina, Wikitude’s CEO.

Alec Saunders, VP Developer Relations, Research In Motion, said: “We’re delighted that Wikitude has integrated BBM support within their app. Integration with BBM can allow much greater viral discovery for apps, as well as enrich and transform the user experience with important social elements.”

Gamification describes a series of design principles, processes and systems used to influence, engage and motivate individuals, groups and communities to drive behaviors and effect desired outcomes. Originating from the video game industry, many of these pioneering concepts now play a key role in driving incentive and behavior management for both brands in the consumer world and internal scenarios in the workplace. Enterprise gamification is a user experience (UX) and consumerization of IT (CoIT) trend that will take the market by storm in 2012. Constellation believes that by 2013, more than 50 percent of all social business initiatives will include an enterprise gamification component.

In interviews with 55 early adopters of enterprise gamification, Constellation identifies the three core pillars that include measurable action, reputation and incentives. By creating triggers through both monetary and non-monetary incentives among customers, employees, partners, suppliers and other interested parties, organizations can secure sustainable engagement and drive business outcomes such as improved marketing response from external communities, sustained long-term customer loyalty, increased collaboration among internal teams, or enriched onboarding, delivering success with new hires, partners, and customers.

Enterprise gamification requires an application of psychology and behavioral economics to incentivize outcomes. Because enterprise gamification maps closely to human behavior, organizations will want to follow Constellation’s best practices in appealing to the “Seven Deadly Sins” for gamification design.

What with self-driving cars and such like, Eric Schmidt is not averse to some blue-sky thinking. But one new prediction may be a moonshot too far.

“By the summer of 2012, the majority of the televisions you see in stores will have Google (NSDQ: GOOG) TV embedded in it,” Schmidt said on stage at the Le Web conference.

The whole connected TV space will explode in 2012, as more new TVs ship with internet connectivity, bringing new content services to the living room. The on-screen gateway to that room is up for grabs.

We just can’t give enough love to mobile payments as we watch the world move from cash to credit to cardless. Intuit is feeling the evolution too and created an infographic to explain just how much mobile payments are growing and where they’ll be in 2015.

The two biggest payment players last year were obviously credit and debit cards, with a small, but rising mobile payments only making up 5 percent of purchases executed. But important to note is that as credit, debit and other forms of payment increase, cash exchange decreases. People have long trusted plastic to deliver their currency, so why not trade in the plastic for airwaves? Well, according to Intuit, people will do just that. Cash is expected to drop to just over $1 trillion changing hands in 2015, and alternate payments jumping up considerably to $2.7 trillion, hugely surpassing cash as a trusted method of payment.

Also important to keep in mind is the proliferation of smartphones themselves. Smartphones have permeated over 40 percent of mobile users, but more interesting is the fact that this is mirrored in business owners. 37 percent of entrepreneurs also work through the smartphone, creating a level playing field for people wanting to buy and sell over the phone.

American retail company REI ventures into augmented reality (AR) promotions by creating an AR app to give prizes to consumers and at the same time encourage traffic inside its new location in New York.

The app is named “Find Out NYC” and may be used by consumers to scan more than 400 specially-designed REI posters located around New York City, which serve as portals to six virtual scenes. Upon finding one of these posters, they can use their smartphone at the poster to scan and capture its respective headline. This will take them to an AR page that projects the virtual nature scene along with pictures of outdoor gear prizes that they can tap to win them. Apart from winning the outdoor gear prize, customers are also given the chance to win a trip for two to Costa Rica.

From REI: REI is now in New York City! We’re located in the historic Puck building near Manhattan’s SoHo district. Drop in and explore our 39,000-square-foot, three-level store. REI offers top-brand outdoor gear and clothing for camping, climbing, cycling, fitness, hiking, paddling, skiing, snowboarding and more. We’re also a complete New York City bike shop, offering professional bike shop services to help keep you biking the streets and trails year-round. Come by, meet our friendly staff of outdoor experts, and gear up for your next adventure. Find out about all of the REI events going on now in the New York area, and be sure to download our new FIND OUT NYC app! Use your phone to scan and unlock specially designed REI posters around the city which serve as portals to six virtual scenes. Use the map functionality on the app to find the posters nearest you. Get Find Out NYC app details.

Starbucks customers apparently are finding buying via mobile as addictive as the company’s coffee.

Less than a year after Starbucks launched an app that allows mobile payments, it has hosted 26 million such transactions on iOS, BlackBerry and Android, according to the chain. One in four Starbucks transactions is now executed via mobile.

The mobile-payments initiative has built momentum recently: In the nine weeks after it was released, there were 3 million transactions. But in the past nine weeks, there have been 6 million, says Adam Brotman, SVP and general manager of Starbucks. He adds that New York, Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago and San Jose, Calif., are the top cities by volume for mobile purchases.