An application for Android from mPayy that lets consumers make payments from their mobile phone without signing into mPayy's Web site should be ready as early as next week, Conrad Sheehan, CEO and founder at the online and mobile payment provider, told Online Media Daily. The application will allow consumers to transfer money to and from mPayy accounts, or make mobile purchases from any small businesses participating in the program. Think PayPal: no credit card, and an easier way to move money via a mobile phone. mPayy relies on the Automated Clearing House (ACH) to move money from person to person, or through Facebook and MySpace. It gives people an option to make a purchase without using a Visa or MasterCard. It also links with Magenta, the shopping cart, and pay buttons for companies that lack sophisticated electronic commerce Web sites. "The information gets triple-encrypted," Sheehan says. "It's beyond the standards set up by Visa and MasterCard. It's easier to build a great new system, rather than make an old system great." Sheehan, of course, believes people have begun -- and will continue -- to make purchases more frequently with cash through a mobile phone instead of paying for the merchandise with a credit card. It's not clear whether consumers will choose cash over credit, but he may be right on the money when it comes to mobile payments. More than 1.6 billion devices worldwide were used to access the Internet in 2009, including PCs, mobile phones, and online video game consoles. By 2013, the total number of devices accessing the Internet will increase to more than 2.7 billion, according to research firm IDC. Worldwide, more than 624 million Internet users will make online purchases in 2009, totaling nearly $8 trillion -- both business and consumer -- according to research firm IDC. By 2013, people worldwide will make electronic commerce transactions tallying more than $16 trillion, the research firm estimates. In turn, brands will allocate more of the budget to Internet advertising. IDC estimates that Internet advertising makes up 10% of all ad spending today. And while this year it will total nearly $61 billion, by 2013, IDC expects it to exceed $100 billion worldwide. IDC estimates that more than 1.6 billion people -- a little more than a quarter of the world's population -- used the Internet in 2009. By 2013, more than 2.2 billion people -- about one-third of the world's population -- will be online.
Universal Studios Home Entertainment on Thursday will launch a mobile campaign that lets people purchase a movie directly from an ad. Supported by Adgregate and Greystripe, the ads will allow consumers to start pre-ordering the movie 'Inglourious Basterds' today on Blu-ray and DVD, or purchase the movie on Dec. 15. The transactions are done through the "secure" rich media ad-unit via mobile phones. The ads target ages 18 to 24. They will run across Greystripe's media mobile ad network, rather than search engines, including iPhone apps like Words with Friends, Sheep Launcher, and TowerMadness. Created by marketing media agency Ignited, the ads will allow Universal to capitalize on growth in mobile commerce and in mobile advertising. Marriott International revealed in December 2008 that it generated $1.25 million in gross revenue in the first 100 days since introducing direct mobile Web bookings. Mobile advertising revenue should jump 60% this year to $184 million and reach $566 million by 2013, according to Henry Wong, Adgregate CEO, citing stats from Yankee Group. "The game is all about capitalizing on impulse and convenience buys, and speed to purchase," he says. "It's not clear what the conversion and drop-off data will be." Through ShopAds, Adgregate will manage the cataloging function and checkout when consumers click on the ad to buy the DVD. "It will launch as a pre-order ad for five days and then transition to get-it-now ad," Wong says. Julie Ask, principal analyst at Forrester Research, says a better consumer experience on phones such as the Android, iPhone, Palm devices, and Nokia are contributing to the uptick and success of mobile advertising for brands. It appears that more people have become comfortable shopping from their mobile phone. Deloitte's 24th Annual Holiday Survey of retail spending and trends, published October 2009, suggests that one in five shoppers plan to use a mobile phone to assist with holiday purchases, from researching prices and other product information to actually buying presents. An increase in smartphone shipments will also contribute to the success in mobile commerce. Research firm iSuppli expects 181 million smartphone units to ship worldwide in 2009, reaching 238.9 million units in 2010, according to analyst Tina Teng. "Even before smartphones became well-known jargon in our daily vocabulary, people purchased ringtones directly from their wireless operators," she says. "If the ad is positioned correctly in the browser, and the ad is relevant to what users are searching for, or location-related, people will become curious and check out the advertisement."
"You have no Christmas spirit," my partner says for the tenth time during this dash through the local mall. "You are a Grinch... a Scrooge... the Burgermeister Meisterberger." Wow, she must mean it. Digging that deep into the back catalog of Rankin Bass Christmas specials is pretty impressive. Regardless, I want out of the mall. "You're Professor Hinkle!" she yells from the Pottery Barn. Yikes -- a "Frosty the Snowman" reference. "Ever wonder why we have to invent so many holiday villains?" I ask. "Did you ever think that they are onto something about how many of us resist being dragged into merriment on a strict schedule?" "You're, your're that lawyer guy in that Macy's Santa Claus movie." Okay, I better buck up and get with the program before she starts scraping up grouches from the "VeggieTales Christmas Spectacular." In fact, there is some holiday cheer to be found on my mobile phone this year. As we wind our way towards 2010, I am heartened by some shards of creativity. To wit... Local is getting real. A number of the models that emerged earlier this year like couponing and user-generated reviews have built up their databases. As I revisit services like Yelp! and Yowza, there is enough localized content to make these tools worthwhile references. When I travel now I usually pop them up on the phone to get a unique perspective on the immediate vicinity, what deals are here and what the locals says about nearby services. I am keeping my eye on the aggregators on mobile because I am seeing some real innovation here. How many individual branded media icons do I want to press to get my news when I know I can pop up the excellent Fleunt News, which pulls in the mobile-optimized pages from the major news sources? I am also enthused by some of the ways in which aggregators are starting to present their collections. One app, Zeitgeist, renders tops stories in different-sized panels to indicate popularity and then has pop-up bubbles that offer an image and the top graph from the story itself. This is great for news scraping. I have never been a big fan of video aggregation, if only because I am not convinced that people really seek out platform-specific experiences on a phone ("hey, I want to see some video right about now"). But Babelgum Mobile is making the video experience more YouTube-like than YouTube. Its scroll of video frames click into nice descriptions and a set of pass-along tools. Also, for the business information hounds, the SmartBrief e-letter publisher has a fascinating app that uses a tag cloud to organize hot topics. The twist is that clicking on a tag then lets you navigate into sub-branches of the tag, so you can filter the business news at a granular level. Speaking of b2b, we are starting to see business publishers think harder about the armies of BlackBerry addicts out there and how they should be leveraging mobile for business information. InformationWeek just launched a Media Snaps format available at its mobile Web site and via email subscription. These are three-minute videos that render practical business advice stories into bullet points and brief slide shows. The user can then download a PDF version of the full article. I like the way the format works from the mobile Web browser and maps so well against the business user's reliance on mobile email. Gift guides finally grew up a bit this Christmas. After the terrible line of gift finders and mobile retail experiences last year, the merchants upped their game this year. Walmart, Target, Overstock, and Best Buy have credible mobile Web sites that give us easy access to large chunks of their inventory and help us streamline the in-store retail experience. The gift guides now are more editorially driven. Media brands like ELLE, Brides, and Runners World have discovered that dead-tree-and-ink media really still matter to users when a publication's editorial expertise is taken off the page and put where we need it most -- when we make choices. The renaissance and the rethink of the mobile game market is one of my favorite 2009 things. After years of bemoaning the horridly overdeveloped titles that tried to squeeze console experiences onto a phone, we finally get titles worth playing. It is not just that the larger, lusher touch screen made gaming more enjoyable, but that the manufacturers shrank their ambitions to target the mobile use case. Even better, the designers realized they didn't have to reinvent fun. The reemergence of classics like the tilt-puzzle Labyrinth, the LucasArts Monkey Island adventures, a turn-based, RPG re-imagining of Wolfenstein, and the loads of simple Boggle knock-offs are all good enough. Mobile game developers finally are taking pages from the Nintendo GameBoy/DS success story and recognizing that simple core gameplay with loads of personality is good enough for a handheld. Even more fascinating is the way in which the app model is proliferating back onto the handhelds. Both Nintendo's DSiWare store and the Playstation Network store for PSP now offer low-priced mini-games, some of which are being crafted by the same developers that are working in the iPhone App Store. In fact, overall, I think that my favorite development vis-à-vis mobile is the way it is starting to give direction to other digital media. In some sense, mobile is teaching other media about new models for content and distribution. Less is more. Fewer ads create better share of voice and better response. Smaller, more munchable bits of content often resonate better with users than the information tsunami the Web has caused. Social media, weather and news in many ways are better experiences now on mobile than they are on the Web. The mobile apps have identified what I really want and need rather than what the publishers want me to want. And yes, we will pay -- when the package is attractive, the price is trivial, the experience immediately rewarding and the payment system truly seamless. The mobile platform learned a lot of valuable lessons in 2009. What is the rest of media going to learn now from mobile? But what are your favorite developments and positive trends from mobile in 2009? Don't be a Burgermeister Meisterburger. Share below.