Gartner, Inc. has revealed its key predictions on the use of social software and collaboration in the enterprise. These predictions focus on offerings ranging from team collaboration to dynamic social networking applications that offer rich profiles and activity streams.

“A lot has happened in a year within the social software and collaboration space. The growing use of platforms such as Twitter and Facebook by business users has resulted in serious enterprise dialogue about procuring social software platforms for the business,” said Mark R. Gilbert, research vice president at Gartner and co-chair of the Portals, Content and Collaboration (PCC) Summit. “Success in social software and collaboration will be characterized by a concerted and collaborative effort between IT and the business.”

Gartner offers five key predictions for social software:

By 2014, social networking services will replace e-mail as the primary vehicle for interpersonal communications for 20 percent of business users.

Greater availability of social networking services both inside and outside the firewall, coupled with changing demographics and work styles will lead 20 percent of users to make a social network the hub of their business communications. During the next several years, most companies will be building out internal social networks and/or allowing business use of personal social network accounts. Social networking will prove to be more effective than e-mail for certain business activities such as status updates and expertise location.
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The study, “NFC Mobile Payments & Marketing Opportunities: Forecasts & Analysis 2009 – 2014,” (source) predicts NFC mobile payments will exceed $30 billion within three years:

• The first NFC devices will be shipped commercially later in 2009 and the market will ramp up from 2011.
• NFC/Felica payments are already established in Japan but by 2014 North America and Western Europe will be experiencing high growth.
• By 2012, NFC global gross transaction value will exceed $30 billion.

Mobile payments 2010: Market analysis and overview – ‘Mobile payments 2010’ is written and published by Innopay in cooperation with Telecompaper, elaborates on the trends, developments and issues, and provides an overview of more than 150 mobile payment initiatives from around the world.

The report consists of two parts:
Part 1: on the trends, developments and issues in the field of mobile payments
Part 2: overview of more than 150 mobile payment initiatives from around the world

Download free copy of The Mobile Payments Report 2010 here

Five Secrets for Effective Loyalty Marketing – one way retailers are hoping to get customers back into their stores, is by offering all sorts of rewards programs and in-store bonuses to their most loyal customers

Compared to the expense required to attract new customers with advertisements or sales, loyalty programs like these are an inexpensive way to keep existing customers coming back and the money flowing in.

Although the average household has a dozen loyalty memberships, almost half of all consumers carry just one or two store membership cards with them, according to Consumer Reports. Knowing how hard it is to become the one card that shoppers carry religiously, retailers are offering bigger and bigger incentives – sometimes too big for a loyalty program to remain profitable.

Margento answers the above and many other challenges with fundamentally simple approach: forget cards – use mobile phones.

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