Lightspeed Research has announced the results of a new study showing that half of mobile users in the U.S. have made purchases from their mobile phone. “Phone apps or games were the most popular items purchased via mobile, music and ringtones coming a distant second and third.” The survey also includes survey data on mobile payment preference, cut by age and gender. The full survey results are available for download.

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Monitise has announced its enhanced technology platform which “incorporates a range of mobile banking and payment services to deliver fast, secure financial management by mobile phone across the world. The platform enables financial institutions, mobile phone networks, service providers, payment companies and processors to offer a wide variety of Mobile Money services in both developed and emerging markets.” The platform offers the following products: * Monitise Mobile Wallet – setting up a virtual wallet on a mobile handset to enable mobile payments and commerce for people without bank accounts, and managing the associated agent networks * Monitise Mobile Payments and…

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The market for NFC (Near Field Communication) mobile payments in the U.S. is in the nascent stage with an adoption rate of only 1.7%; this represents a huge opportunity for early movers offering the same. Adopting NFC mobile payment will open new revenue channels for banks as well as mobile operators as more than 94% of the U.S. population owns a mobile phone, and 60% of these have a card slot in their mobile phone. With the help of NFC technology, banks will be able to tap micro transactions made by cash, representing around 20% of the total transactions in the U.S. This will also help banks to capture the growing GEN Y population as well as the huge underbanked and unbanked population.

With Mobile phones becoming essential commodity in todays time. But the ever increasing mobile bills have added to agony of users. However, we now have a solution in terms of PAY as you mobile phones.

The pay as you go mobile phones come with plenty of benefits and options that give the users an opportunity to select appropriate mobile deals as per their specific needs. These handsets are a perfect idea for those who want to keep their eyes on the monthly expenses of their ever exceeding mobile bills.

Apparel Group Loyalty Program “Club Apparel” was launched few days ago in Dubai in cooperation with Imovation. Club Apparel is the first Mobile Loyalty Program in UAE and it’s based on globally patented Margento technology.
It enables local as well as international shoppers benefit from using their personal mobile phones to identify themselves at affiliated points of sale. Collecting and redeeming of points is done through a simple phone call. All transactions are quick and take very little effort, while still guaranteeing a high degree of security.

275 Apparel stores are part of the Club Apparel scheme and equipped with the Margento POS terminals. After successful launch, Apparel Club will role out to the group’s other stores across the Middle East.

MOBIQPONS Launches Free Environment-friendly Mobile Coupons Application for Blackberry Storm – MobiQpons announced the release and availability of its “Coupons for Shopping -MobiQpons” application for Blackberry Storm via Blackberry App World. This is in addition to its applications for iPhone and Android smart phones

MobiQpons Inc. today announced that its Mobile Coupons application “Coupons for Shopping -MobiQpons ” is now available for consumers to download from its website http://mobiqpons.com/

Mobile Marketing Coupons Gain Popularity – Tucked inside newspapers across the country this Sunday, SmartSource, the coupon insert, will tell readers in 68 million households how they can send a text message to get coupons sent to their mobile phones

Brooklyn Center-based Caribou Coffee used a mobile marketing couponing company called Cellfire to send coupons this year for its new Acacia Organic Blend and Northern Lite Latte.

“We looked at mobile marketing as a way for us to drive store traffic and gain trial for a new product launch,” marketing manager Jake Miller said. “If we can get trial, we know there is a good chance that guest will come back again.” He declined to give details on the results but said Caribou would use mobile marketing coupons again.

MixMobi, a Plymouth mobile marketing startup, is launching a technology platform that lets retailers build coupons that can be “tweeted” on the social media site Twitter, which appears on cell phones as well as computers.

MixMobi co-founder Lisa Foote is letting small marketing agencies experiment with the technology to work out the bugs before the launch. Sprout.mn in Minneapolis designed a coupon for the Seward Co-op advertising 50 cents off at the deli this weekend.

“I think the consumer definitely wants mobile couponing,” she said. “I think people are really hungry for deals, and more than 90 percent of Americans carry cell phones.”

To be sure, technologists have heralded mobile marketing coupons for several years with little effect.

But a sudden surge of interest by big- name retailers and packaged-goods companies, coupled with better technology, is creating buzz for the mobile marketing coupon this year.

Only 3 percent of consumers used a mobile marketing coupon in 2008, but more than half of them knew about them, Forrester Research, a technology consultancy, reported this year.

The recession has advanced coupon usage in all its forms, including online. Digital coupons were the fastest growing Web site category last November, with visitors to coupon sites up 32 percent over October 2008, said comScore Inc., another technology research company.

Put it all together, and advertisers see cell phones as 277 million tiny electronic billboards in every pocket or purse.

“It’s a big area of interest these days. I’ve been getting tons of calls about this,” said Evan Neufeld, a senior analyst for mobile communications for comScore Inc.

Mobile marketing coupons have become a buzzword inside the big packaged-goods companies, Neufeld said. “They all say they want a mobile strategy,” he said. These companies will insure consumers see more ads, he said.

The popularity of smart phones, with their larger, made-for-the-Web screens, is driving the trend, too. Coupons look better on bigger screens, marketers say.
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Save Money with Mobile Coupons – The new mobile coupon program can transform the average joe into a savvy shopper by saving time and money.

Looking for ways to save money during tight times, but don’t want to spend the time searching through the newspaper looking for coupons? Well you’re in luck… The future of coupons has arrived in an easy, organized application that can be downloaded straight from your Smartphone.

Target has announced the first ever scannable coupon program for mobile phones. The program will send coupons to your mobile device that can be scanned at checkout. The opt-in program will provide Target shoppers with a customized webpage on their mobile phones, with all offers scannable at checkout via a single barcode.

Target is the first to venture into the coupon program, but there will be many to follow. Coupons will benefit businesses and customers alike–promoting spending while saving money for consumers. In addition, the convenience and “Green” factor of digital coupons, particularly mobile coupons, make them especially appealing to consumers today.

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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Gartner, Inc. has highlighted the key predictions that herald long-term changes in approach for IT organizations and the people they serve for 2010 and beyond. Gartner’s top predictions for 2010 showcase the trends and events that will change the nature of business today and beyond.

These predictions were selected from across Gartner’s research areas as the most compelling and critical predictions. The trends and topics they address this year speak to the changing balance of power and focus in IT. Gartner analysts said last year’s themes of shifting ownership and revenue flows continue, becoming more pronounced and more sharply focused. As the macro-economic environment adjusts to a new balance between supply, consumer demand and regulation, the focus of this year’s top predictions has expanded to encompass shifts in the way that users interact with IT.

“As organizations make plans to navigate the economic recovery and prepare for the return to growth, our predictions for 2010 focus on the impact of critical changes in the balance of control and power in IT,” said Brian Gammage, vice president and research fellow at Gartner. “With greater financial and regulatory oversight for all IT investment decisions, few organizations will be unaffected.”

“For many organizations, the economic and budgetary challenges of 2009 drove important changes in the general governance of IT investment decisions, accelerating the trend toward greater accountability and transparency,” said Daryl Plummer, managing vice president and chief Gartner fellow. “With a strong emphasis on business-case justifications, chief financial officers (CFOs) assumed a more active role. Although most organizations enter 2010 preparing for a return to growth, this financial oversight is unlikely to be lifted anytime soon. For IT leaders, greater fluency in the language of business has become a requirement.”

Gartner’s top predictions are intended to compel readers to action and to position themselves to take advantage of coming changes, not to be damaged by them. Gartner’s top predictions for 2010 and beyond include:

By 2012, 20 percent of businesses will own no IT assets. Several interrelated trends are driving the movement toward decreased IT hardware assets, such as virtualization, cloud-enabled services, and employees running personal desktops and notebook systems on corporate networks.
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