Pay through your iPhone camera with card.io
I would love to see this in the real-world.
Mobile Web: The Game Changed
Mobile is quickly emerging to be the number one priority for a number of retailers, this post on the econsultancy blog looks into how us brits use the internet on our mobile.
Your Mobile App – Meets Your Magento Store
I have to say i think the Magento mobile apps are pretty great, combining a native app experience with your online store. The only problem is that I haven’t seen many UK stores using this yet, and I haven’t yet been able to sample the iPad versions of the app. If you hear of any please let me know.
Mobile commerce through the affiliate channel
An interesting look at the mobile sales seen through one the affiliate window network. The graph below shows that mobile commerce is clearly taking off, and that we all need to think about establishing mobile versions of our websites (especially ecommerce ones).
One thing that strikes me here is how iPad usage is about the same as iPhone usage, despite being a relatively new product and having a much lower install base, this goes to show that people are using the iPad rather than using a laptop, netbook or similar device.
The article stresses the importance of trying to create mobile versions of our websites:
With such a vast amount of activity being generated through mobile devices advertisers need to sit up and take notice. Without a website fully optimised for mobile, customers looking to purchase on the move may find an inadequate user experience and opt to purchase elsewhere.
I wouldn’t necessarily say this was true of the iPad, the iPad has a resolution which most websites are designed for (1024 x 768) and so people visiting on an iPad will get a desktop experience, as the screen and machine can handle this (unless your site is heavily based on flash).
Magento Announces Apple iPad and Android Support for Magento Mobile
Nice to see that Magento has added Android and iPad support to Magento Mobile offering.
I’ve been a big fan of the iPhone version of the software, it integrates easily with your store, and allows you to personalise your app.
Pricing isn’t too bad either, compared to the comparative cost of getting someone to design the system from scratch, although I wish they would start supporting more payment providers other than PayPal Mobile.
Shot Note Paper Pads Designed to Be Scanned by iPhone
These look really cool, and beats having all of those old notebooks lying around. However, I’m not sure I could be bothered to photography my notes after every meeting. Also I don’t like the fact that I have to buy stationery from them, but I guess you could always get your friendly graphic designer and printer to do it cheaply.
Make it a Mobile Web App
A nice piece here talking about what it takes to make a website into a web app, I think native apps are the way to go, however if they’re using a online service then a mobile web app is completely appropriate.
I personally would like to combine the two, create a native app which is essentially a web-kit browser which goes to the mobile site.
6 Predictions for Digital Advertising in 2011
I think some of these are pretty spot-on. Geo-location and mobile is going to start influencing a lot more of the things we do online.
Location based advertising is definitely going to be the next big thing, point 1 says:
Location-based advertising will continue to grow in 2011 as Facebook expands the technology with its location platform, Places. In addition to Facebook, many other players in the checkin space, including Foursquare, Yelp, Shopkick, and last but not least, Google, will condition shoppers to expect a deal or coupon for alerting friends of their whereabouts.
I definitely think these people are going to be the big people in Mobile Advertising, although don’t count Apple out either, I would think they would want to add this to their iAds service.
I personally think Facebook is going to expand their places service to include coupons (bit like Facebook meeting Groupon) so that as soon as you check in somewhere you’re going to get access to some kind of reward.