Archive for the 'New Business Models' Category
Has Contactless Sputtered Because Merchants are Ignorant or Unpersuaded?
Published by David Evans on May 16th, 2008Ignorance could delay contactless-payments adoption according to a heading in Cardline, which quotes some wags who suggest that contactless isn’t going as fast as it might because of “the technology’s unfamiliarity among merchants and consumers.” (CardLine, subscription required).Of course it is hard to tell whether potential customers don’t choose something because they are ignorant or […]
Mobile TV?
Published by David Evans on May 6th, 2008Ok, all of you are probably sick of us writing on mobile. But I thought the recent article in the New York Times Mobile TV Spreading in Europe and to the US was pretty interesting.
The Swiss it appears are going crazy watching TV on their little screens—40,000 a day which might actually […]
Hollywood on your Handset?
Published by Karen Webster on April 28th, 2008Embattled handset manufacturer Motorola has recently announced its intention to develop a digital movie initiative that would offer full length motion pictures reformatted for their multimedia devices. Paramount Pictures has reportedly signed on as a content partner with others not far behind. Some say that the service could launch in May – although pricing options […]
Wachovia: No Contactless
Published by David Evans on April 25th, 2008As he said in an interview with American Banker (subscription required), Wachovia’s Steve Boehm is taking the sensible man’s approach to contactless: wait and see if it takes off and get on the bandwagon when it does. Contactless–like smart cards–is unfortunately a technology in search of a business model to support it.
Some banks and […]
Developers Whining over Facebook
Published by David Evans on April 24th, 2008Facebook developers did some whining at the Web 2.0 Expo, according to a report in TechCrunch titled “Facebook Platform Faces Rough Road Ahead, Despite Successes.”
The session started off with a disagreement over how much money developers are actually making through Facebook … Joyce Park of Renkoo and Matt Sanchez of VideoEgg predicted revenues as low […]
Mobile TV still Wandering in the Business Model Wilderness
Published by David Evans on April 23rd, 2008Mobile television hasn’t found a profitable business model just yet, mocoNews.net reports. The providers aren’t making much money even in Korea and Japan, where there are a lot of subscribers. Subscription-based services can’t generate enough revenue.
I agree with the article that we won’t ignite a catalyst reaction for mobile television until subscribers […]
Is “free” the Key to Mobile Bar Code Success?
Published by David Evans on April 15th, 2008Two recent articles on mobile bar codes illustrate the importance of a key catalyst principle—you have to get the pricing balance right for your stakeholders. A trial of mobile bar codes among students at Case Western University flopped in part because of price—students were unsure how much downloading the barcodes was going to cost […]
Shop ‘Til You Drop (the bricks and mortar merchant, that is)
Published by Karen Webster on April 14th, 2008Amazon’s latest foray into the mobile shopping world has to be giving the bricks and mortar merchant a major headache. TextBuyIt allows a consumer to be in a store (or anywhere for that matter), text an item’s description or UPC code to Amazon and receive a free text message back with two product options, if […]
A May December Marriage in the Cards
Published by David Evans on April 7th, 2008The newest general purchase payment card scheme in the US–Discover, which was launched by Sears in 1986–has just bought the oldest general purchase payment card scheme in the U.S. (and elsewhere)–Diners Club, which launched the modern card in 1950 in Manhattan.
Diners Club is the poster child for why first-mover advantages sound good in […]
What’s Down with Google?
Published by David Evans on March 31st, 2008With Google’s stock down 40 percent since the beginning of the year you have to wonder whether some investors have misunderstood how Google makes money all along. Google’s stock too a big whack a few weeks ago when ComScore released stats showing that number of clicks the search-ad giant was getting were down. What the […]






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