Last week’s announcement of Visa’s strategic investment in Square set off a wave of news reports and blog posts about its implications for Visa, Square and the rest of the ecosystem. Most of the discussion was focused on the how much Visa invested (they say it was in the “single millions of dollars”) and speculation […]

The Basics – NSTIC and The Identity Ecosystem
On April 15, the White House announced the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) – a long-awaited framework for enhancing online security, while in theory, maintaining privacy, efficiency and consumer choice. The NSTIC paper outlines a public/private sector cooperative effort to develop and implement an Identity […]

Google and Apple made news last week when they announced their respective plans to help publishers monetize their content. Less than 24 hours after Cupid worked his magic on Valentine’s Day, Apple began a subscription payment service that lets customers pay for content that magazine publishers make available via the Apple app store. There are […]

Valentine’s Day has come and gone, but the weeklong “Loves Me” or “Loves Me Not” series on PYMNTS.com is just beginning. The final stop for the Market Platform Dynamics team is ‘Open Platforms’: loves me or loves me not?
David Evans: Loves Me
Wouldn’t you love to have a business where everyone else does all the work, […]

Reader Warning: My usually sunny demeanor has been replaced by a little crankiness, given an unfortunate, unintended consequence of the snow and ice that has plagued Boston for what seems like months now. Last Tuesday, I slipped on the ice and broke my right wrist. And yes, I am right-handed. The surgery Friday and a […]

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Introduction
Despite the recent economic crisis, lagging unemployment and lingering consumer doubts about the economy, one bright spot has persisted in the retail landscape: eCommerce has continued to grow as a major force in global retail. Online retail sales are expected to reach nearly $250 billion by 2014, […]

Sidelining the sweets? Forgoing the french fries? There are some New Year’s resolutions worth keeping this year and continuing the Resolution Series, Karen Webster shares her 2011 payments New Year’s resolutions.
I will focus on innovation that can be ignited and return a profit (in my lifetime)
I know that VCs have a rule […]

Last Thursday I testified before the House Committee on Financial Services on the “The Credit Card Interchange Fees Act of 2009” sponsored by Representative Welch. The Act would allow merchants to impose surcharges on cards, prevent card networks broadly defined from charging higher interchange fees for reward cards, require card networks to disclose publicly […]

Two Gartner analysts have laid out a doomsday scenario in which Microsoft’s Windows operating system is in danger of collapsing under its own weight. They point to Microsoft’s smaller and nimble rivals such as Apple and Linux as more innovative.
They have a point—up to a point. Microsoft has taken on the huge task […]

The lastest issue of Wired Magazine has an interesting article on. How Apple Got Everything Right by Doing Everything Wrong. It provides some useful insights into why companies can sometimes do better by keeping tight control over their product rather than operating as a catalyst that encourages other businesses to join the ecosystem. Any […]