Here’s our latest round up of tidbits from the worlds of mobile, payments, and retail.
Google Wallet
Google continued their march into mobile payments this week with the launch of Google Wallet. This will allow US customers (for now) to pay for things with their mobile using either their bank card or a Google prepaid card. A very clever move by Google is to include their Google Offers coupon product in the app. The search giants are starting to control a number of different elements of the payments cycle and the ability to purchase a substantially reduced product or service with the click of a button will be a very effective revenue generator.
Paying for Mobile Payments
A barrier to the development of mobile/NFC payments in the past has been the infrastructure required to implement them, as well as the spread of handsets capable of using the systems. While major players like Google, Visa, Orange and Barclaycard are all gearing up for this move, the question still remains of who will pay for it all. Ronan Shields examines this in NMA and suggests that it is unlikely that mobile payments will be in place in a meaningful way until well after the 2012 Olympics, which had been touted as the ‘cashless games’.
Over the Shoulder
An interesting product came to our attention this week – Over the Shoulder. It’s an app that allows users to give feedback to retailers as they purchase items rather than after the fact. Apparently this gives far more accurate insights into what customers think of products. It also has the handy side-effect of providing tracking information on when and where purchases are happening. One to watch for retailers – Coors beer have already trialled the app in the US.
Flex Technology
Another bit of technology that caught our eye this week is Flex touchscreen which changes the way in which touchscreen pages, such as Google maps for instance, display. Instead of scrolling, they ‘flex’ in a very cool way – this video explains all.
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