mobile phone – Hello Curns

Contactless Payments: All Rise

Some comments are just too long for Twitter, but I’m unsure if they are worthy of a post like this. Still, having no other place, I want to comment. Here goes.

Last October Apple launched Apple Pay; the contactless payment mechanism using your mobile phone and not a plastic credit card. At the time, I wrote a quick summary of my payment day for those who were new to contactless payments (hint: not really aimed at the UK market). It’s now pretty mainstream.

According to the BBC, in the UK, £2.3billion was transacted this way in 2014, where “30% of all transactions [in London] below £20 were contactless,” according to Barclaycard. Last Friday, the BBC even had a Six O’Clock News item on the rise of contactless payments, with the three-fold year-on-year rise amusingly illustrated with loaf tins at a baker’s (pun, one assumes, absolutely intended). They also noted that an increased transaction limit is coming, which is useful. See the video on BBC News.

But no mention of any of the non-plastic card ways to pay: pay tags or mobile phones. I found that a bit odd given they are likely to grow quickly as they are introduced.

Specials On The Streets Of San Francisco

My San Francisco visit highlights the need for location-aware online ads.

It may be jet lag or hallucinations brought on by an overdose of blue cheese dressing, but my visit to San Francisco during the last week has convinced me of two things: there are some very smart people in the online ad business, and they’d better have a location-aware ad play by the time you’ve finished reading this. If they haven’t got one soon, then my first point was wrong.

My predictions landed on your screen on 1st January, didn’t they? Well, 109,440 minutes later (or 17th March as some know it), I’ve seen my three key thoughts in action. If they can achieve mass-market penetration, there’ll be substantial new advertising revenue around. Having seen the pieces come together now, I can really foresee huge opportunities for companies that can get scale and reach on mobile devices. And although I am in the spiritual home of internet start-ups, the tool that proved my point was created in New York, and I’ve been using it in London for some time, believing there was something in it. It’s the tool that made me the unelected mayor of two coffee shops (who should read what I have to say and get me a free coffee): Foursquare.

Foursquare is a location-aware social network mobile game (just count those buzz words and cash your VC cheque now). In a nutshell, tell your friends where you are, collect points and leave tips about great things to do. Check in (identify your current location) on your mobile phone wherever you are (my check-in stats are here). The game elements, points, value and status add to the fun. Wikipedia says there are 450,000 members/players as I write this.

As I wandered through San Francisco, I’d check in occasionally. You get more points the first time you check in, so, as I hadn’t been in town for 10 years, every check-in was a stack of points in my own personal game. But here I saw something new. A little “Special Nearby” flag would appear. Check the special, and you’ll discover offers on places nearby: $1 drinks, a frozen yoghurt discount or something for the mayor. Visit the location, check in, and show your mobile phone to the retailer to claim your discount or freebie. Simple, elegant, and it really works. There should be no reason London isn’t offering as many specials right now, but if it is, I’m going to the wrong places. In Frisco, I just kept coming across them in the central area.

This all ticks at least three of my prediction boxes just 10 weeks after I wrote them down (I’m not claiming to be Mystic Meg, just that the collision of these ideas proved themselves to me a little sooner than I thought they would)! Tick one: it is location-based, and the specials are near where you are now. Tick two: most specials are, effectively, coupons which you show to redeem. Tick three: it’s real time (by which I mean the offers are available near you now). I haven’t determined if the venues offering the reward are always open when you see the “Special”. Tick, tick, tick.

I have no idea if it will be Foursquare that goes big with this (they need more people in more places playing), but it is showing what a world of location-aware advertising could be like, and that’ll be a very appealing world to a lot of retailers. As the number of advertisers grows, a little user targeting (to ensure, of all the offers here, it’s the right one for me) will be needed, but generally, the people who will see your advertisement will be in the right place at the right time. It’s an ad proposition with lower waste and greater measurability, which is what most businesses want.

Now, I’m checking in at the airport to head home to try a check-in at Paul A Young Fine Chocolates, which are, apparently, offering free award-winning chocolate truffles if you prove you’ve checked in.

The 2007 Collection

Another New Year and time for the regular yearly review as seen through the pictures that I take on my mobile phone. At least this year I am posting the pictures at the very beginning of the year! This year’s mosaic features 7 rows (for 2007) of 5 pictures.

The original idea was that pictures captured on a mobile phone provide an interesting view of the year. This year the Flickr photostream for my mobile shots shows 74 photographs – but many are from earlier in the year. See the full collection at Flickr. Of course, they only represent a snapshot of the year; a fuller collection for the year can be seen under the 2007 Flickr tag.

Piccadilly Circus, March 2003

I acquired a new mobile ‘phone earlier in the week and it has a tiny camera in it which I used to take a picture of Piccadilly Circus at night

I acquired a new mobile phone earlier in the week. I didn’t actually choose the model. I acquired a new mobile phone earlier in the week. I didn’t actually choose the model because I was sent it. It’s bigger and heavier than my previous mobile, and it doesn’t have a radio, which I really liked when I was walking to work. It does, however, have a calendar function, which I find quite useful, and it has one of those built-in cameras that people rave about.

It’s not the greatest camera in the world, but it is quite cool to have a camera that you carry with you all the time. For no real reason, on Tuesday night, I decided that I wanted to take a shot of Piccadilly Circus (I work just around the corner). I have just pulled the image off the phone. It’s not a great photo (in fact, it’s a pretty poor one), but I am really quite happy with it. There is something about the colour and the light that suggests the real buzz you get from walking across Piccadilly Circus at night. Now, let’s see how many more photos I post.

Obviously, I am not the only person in the world to have a camera in a phone, I am not the only person to get excited about it, and I am not the only one to blog it. Guess there’s very little unique about me!