Couldn’t resist the opportunity to weigh in, briefly, on the story that had the Web in an uproar yesterday. Seems as though Verizon may be giving Google the proverbial lump of coal a little early this year by saying ixnay to its Wallet. (Read Verizon’s latest statement.) Now, having the largest mobile operator in the […]

The holiday season is upon us. I know, wasn’t it just July? That aside, ‘tis the season of parties, gift buying and giving, holiday songs and TV and movie classics that put the meaning of the holiday season in the proper context. 
And the holiday season wouldn’t be complete without at least one viewing of that […]

Mobile. Everywhere. Opportunity. Everywhere. This was the theme of the GigaOm Mobilize 2011 conference held one week ago in San Francisco. Over two days during 50 sessions, participants debated the impact of the mash-up of cloud computing and the mobile Web for driving new opportunities for everyone in mobile - certainly a familiar theme for […]

Over last two days, I handicapped PayPal and Google in their race with each other and potential players to grab a big share of the emerging mobile transaction platform ecosystem. Today, I’m going to share some final thoughts.
One thing that I think that the Starbucks mobile experience has shown us is how willing consumers are […]

Yesterday, I gave my thoughts on what PayPal had going for it in its race to win or at least get bronze in the mobile transaction platform race. Here’s my take on Google.
Consumers: There are a couple of important things to look at here. First, Google is the largest search engine on the planet, has […]

Ah, September! It’s the beginning of fall: back to school, football, sweaters here in Boston, and now apparently, the race to the physical point of sale – mobile payments style. PayPal let the world in on its mobile payments vision two weeks ago at an invitation-only forum in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. Google launched its […]

The resignation of Steve Jobs as Apple’s CEO has prompted a zillion articles on its impact on everything from Apple’s ability to continue to innovate to the future of the mobile industry. I don’t have much to add to that score. News of his resignation brought to mind two things, though, that might be new […]

To integrate, or not to integrate: that is the question. Or at least the one that has hung over Steve Jobs’ career that, sadly, seems to have come to an end.
By the late 1980s, Jobs was considered a fool outdone by the wily Bill Gates. Jobs – obsessed with the beauty of the Mac, with […]

Visa’s recent acquisition push has brought the payments network giant a range of interesting assets, from merchant processing solutions, mobile and social media properties to technology solutions. However, Visa’s most recent acquisition, Fundamo of South Africa, may have the most interesting potential to influence the direction of global mobile payments, given its focus on using […]

Google’s announcement today of its NFC-mobile payments scheme is, with a few exceptions, a real textbook case study in what you need to do if you want to ignite a new payments method. It’s also a real study in contrast of the struggles that others, namely ISIS, have had in trying to pull something similar […]