The only phone in the US that supports NFC is the Google Nexus S, available with t-mobile and Sprint, and there are high hopes that the iPhone 5 will support it too.
Right now, Google Wallet only works with Citi-Mastercards and the Google Prepaid Card. Visa and Google announced a worldwide agreement to support the Visa payWave app, but it will still be up to the financial institutions and banks to add support.
If the typical Indian business owner thinks the much talked about smartphone revolution does not concern their business then they should think again. Given the rapid growth of the smartphone market, it is only a matter of time till Indian consumers get their hands on one of the new generation mobile phones. This presents a great opportunity for Indian small businesses that know how to capitalize on this trend to gain competitive advantage.
Although India boasts to have the 2nd largest telecommunication network in the world after China (with 771 million mobile lines in service) and over time internet usage has surged (currently standing at aprox. 50 million active monthly internet users on PCs and phones), consumers in India have historically avoided mobile internet. The reason was the slow speed of the connections and an overall poor experience on feature phones. This is about to change.
India’s telecom providers are now driving consumers towards a new wave of inexpensive smartphones that will be powered by their new next generation 3G mobile networks, which should be fully rolled by 2012. According to IMRB and IAMAI the total number of mobile internet users in India in 2010 was 12.1 million. In 2011 the number is expected to reach 30 million. A recent study by the Boston Consulting Group has predicted there could be as many as 237 million mobile internet users in India by 2015, up from the current estimate of about 11 million. This not only implies exciting times for telecom companies but also presents a unique opportunity for businesses that are ready to deliver rich mobile content, games, and useful ‘apps’ to consumers and businesses hungry for great experiences on their new smartphones.
Smartphones, for many Indian consumers in cities and rural areas alike, will represent the equivalent of their PC, opening the flood gates to reaching the previously untapped consumers throughout the country with compelling digital experiences. Consumers, who had been previously limited to retail businesses in their local area, will now have full access to online commerce sites. Since historically e-commerce sites have not been formatted for mobile devices, India’s future presents a perfect opportunity for small businesses to serve this new need, while avoiding global players as competition.
In the future, consumers will also have full access to ‘apps’, the latest hot trend in mobile, that will allow for businesses to provide experiences that move well beyond the capability of the mobile browser. Free, for sale or designed to drive awareness of their business, applications will provide businesses with a permanent foothold on consumers’ devices. In a recent report, Gartner forecasts that global sales of apps for the iPad, iPhone and other portable mobile phones and devices will exceed $15 billion in 2011. It also predicts that this year 17.7 billion apps will be downloaded, the revenue from which will exceed the mobile app revenue generated in 2010 by 190%.
Though digital technologies are yet to conquer the Indian market, the country has already set out on a path to its digital future. Smartphones will bring rich digital experiences to the masses, which they will not only desire but will come to expect – and entrepreneurs who are at the forefront of such platforms will reap the benefits.
I love apps on my mobile devices. Some might argue I have an app addiction with literally 15 to 20 apps being bought a month between my iPhone, HTC Desire, and my iPad. Since apps are reviewed by the app stores I don’t worry about my devices crashing and if I don’t like them they’re easy to uninstall so I’m always to try out apps by businesses and brands a like. In fact it’s pretty normal fair these days for brands to be creating apps and games and distributing these (typically free) brand experiences through the app stores. In fact I find they tend to make their way into almost every digital pitch these days.
Why then did desktop applications as brand experiences never take off?
Adobe Air made it easy for Flex and Actionscript developers to create multi-platform desktop apps and yet the world of desktop apps as marketing experiences never went mainstream. There are so many clear benefits including being an ongoing engagement with consumers on one of their most personal devices that they might spend hours and hours a day on.
Apple will launch a new iOS based device priced at $99
The iTV will only have 16Gb of Flash based storage
It will mainly stream content from a local computer or the cloud
It’s only capable of 720p as opposed to 1080p
Apple is negotiating 99 cents rentals, down from $1.99 to $2.99, or even higher for HD. This will also apply for iPhone, iTouch, and iPad content consumption.
The device will have a built-in camera, or will be able to connect to one and run FaceTime.
iOS will run apps
Extending on this last point: Apps … brands, marketers, advertisers, or any experience designer, this is the big question … How will they work? Can you run existing apps in the big screen? but if you do, the big screen is not multitouch, damn, it’s not even touch! You will need a special control just to point and click …
So perhaps you can’t run the same apps in the big screen … and you know, maybe it’s better if we don’t … the screen apps are content companions … the main purpose of the TV is not to run apps, but apps are there to extend and amplify the experience of TV content consumption.
Apps could run on sidebars, overlays, show and hide, or a number of different visual options; but in order for them not to be dump widgets — i.e. a weather widget — they will need to be connected, obviously, but also have contextual information of the content you’re watching. Imagine apps that allow friends to chat about content, possibly with FaceTime, but also interact with other friends watching the same show … enable co-watching experiences. Leave timestamped messages into content, or be pre-loaded with metadata about the content and let you explore more info about actors, places, sets, products … even let you click to buy the products you’re watching … The possibilities are endless.
"Take Me To Your Leader" focuses on trend watching in consumer behaviors, marketing, technology, and social media, but is often led astray by its eccentric authors and their love of music, traveling, random thoughts, and pirates.
Google officially rolled out its Google Wallet mobile payment system Monday. Is still in its infancy, but the system already shows a lot of promise.
