Im not a phone guru but I am trying to keep up with how much (and how little) has changed with the cell phone platform. Two articles of note today: one on paying with your phone and the other on search.
One feature I havent seen yet and I think is an example of how far phones have to go: voice messages. I would like to listen to my voicemail with the speakerphone and have the screen show me the time of the message, the caller number/name, and allow me to flag it or categorize it. I think this feature would very helpful, sort of like verbal email, but to do it would combine the voice and data worlds which still seem very far apart.
Motorola seems to be pushing these payment services in the US. Maybe they have more Korean engineers than the competition? These services seem pretty useful so I hope they make progress.
You've Got Money: Paying via Text Message
New Services From PayPal, Others Let Cellphone Users Transfer Funds, Buy Products
April 26, 2006
A wave of new options are offering cellphone users a way to transfer money and make purchases on the fly, using text-messaging technology.
EBay Inc.'s PayPal unit this month introduced a service called PayPal Mobile that allows consumers to send payments to others, purchase items from select retailers, or donate money to some charities by punching a short text code into a cellphone. Obopay Inc. a Palo Alto, Calif., start-up, began enrolling consumers in its mobile-payment service this month. And start-up TextPayMe Inc. of Redmond, Wash., launched a service in December allowing people to send money to each other via text messaging.
These services come on top of efforts by credit-card companies and cellphone makers to create so-called mobile wallets. Motorola Inc., MasterCard International, Visa and others are developing services that would allow users to store credit-card information on cellphones that can be waved over special terminals at the checkout counter to make purchases.
The two categories of services are very different and are unlikely to compete. Mobile wallets are intended as a quick way for consumers to make purchases anywhere their credit card is accepted, without having to carry their wallets.
Text-payment services are designed primarily as cash-swapping services between parties that don't accept credit cards, say when people pay a babysitter or someone selling goods through classified ads. PayPal, though, does have a way to allow limited purchases from merchants.
Mobile payments have already taken off in Europe and Asia -- where many consumers pay for restaurant meals and public transportation by pushing buttons on a cellphone. World-wide, financial transactions involving a mobile handset are expected to climb to $37.1 billion in 2008 from $3.2 billion in 2003, according to a study last year from Arthur D. Little, a management-consulting firm.
A cellphone with a GPS map function would be awesome! Search (and advertising), not so interesting to me.
The Next Tech Battle: Internet Searches on Cellphones
May 8, 2006
The push by the world's biggest Internet search firms to dominate what customers see when they turn on their cellphones has accelerated in recent months with Google Inc., Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. all striking deals with service providers and others in the cellphone industry.
The tech giants want their search engines and logos to pop up on cellphone screens, enabling people to also use their phones for other services the companies provide, such as downloading maps, or sending email and instant messaging, just as they do on their computers.
The companies contend that even though only a small number of people currently use their phones to search for information online, there is a huge potential market with twice as many cellphones in use globally as PCs. And, as search engines become better at tailoring results to a user's location, mobile searching will become more attractive, they say. "The leading edge battleground between us and Google in local search really will come on the phone," predicts Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer.
Internet searching in general is a huge market, with U.S. search-related advertising spending totaling $5.1 billion last year, according to research firm eMarketer Inc. But advertising on cellphones is still in its infancy, generating just about $100 million last year, analysts say. And, mobile searching generates little if any revenue. Still, Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt recently said on the sidelines of its annual analyst conference that mobile advertising was the company's single most exciting opportunity.
