PayPal has revised its projected 2011 revenue for mobile payments for a third time this year to $3 billion. Earlier projections from the company pegged mobile revenue at $1.5 billion and then $2 billion.“Mobile payments are growing at a rate we never could have...
Visa Inc. has announced plans to acquire PlaySpan Inc. for nearly $190 million with additional earn-out potential.The move comes as incumbents in the credit card and traditional payments space jostle with startups for positioning in the nascent mobile arena. PlaySpan isn't purely mobile —...
Editor's Note: Welcome to our weekly Reality Check column. We've gathered a group of visionaries and veterans in the mobile industry to give their insights into the marketplace.Ecosystems found in nature can be easily destroyed when there is an imbalance. Business ecosystems tend to...
Editor's Note: Welcome to our weekly Reality Check column. We've gathered a group of visionaries and veterans in the mobile industry to give their insights into the marketplace.Based on the shopping bags I saw this past holiday season, the smartphone industry is posed to...
Editor's Note: Welcome to our weekly Reality Check column. We've gathered a group of visionaries and veterans in the mobile industry to give their insights into the marketplace.Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, iPhone, Android. What's next? The public's taste in smartphones seems to change much like...
Editor's Note: Welcome to our weekly Reality Check column. We've gathered a group of visionaries and veterans in the mobile industry to give their insights into the marketplace.Consumers have a new passion – their personal mobile devices. Whether it's a smartphone, laptop or netbook,...
Mobile marketing types like to talk about cool features like click-to-video, 2-D barcodes and interactive wireless scavenger hunts. But as the economy slows to a trickle and advertisers tighten their belts, 2009 is poised to become the year of SMS marketing.The recession has caused...
VeriSign Inc. continued to streamline its business by jettisoning part of its European mobile messaging division.The Mountain View, Calif.-based company had established a mobile foothold in Europe with the 2006 acquisition of Austria's 3united Mobile Solutions AG for $65.5 million. But VeriSign said it...
Sybase Inc. is looking to expand its m-commerce business with the acquisition of Germany's paybox solutions AG for an undisclosed sum.Paybox was founded 10 years ago and has gained traction in markets including Germany and Austria, where it spearheaded an effort to create operator-led,...
Editor's Note: RCR Wireless News teamed with the Yankee Group to conduct a series of market surveys of RCR Wireless News subscribers to gauge their thoughts on various technology issues. More than 2,600 readers responded to the second wave of surveys. Congrats to Ron...
Visa Inc. outlined a series of initiatives with three big-name partners in an effort to make mobile payment services "broadly available" to U.S. consumers by year's end.Visa next month will begin rolling out m-commerce offerings for Nokia Corp. phones, beginning with the handset maker's...
SAN FRANCISCO -- There is no shortage of challenges in getting m-commerce off the ground in the United States. But maybe the most important factor is time.That was the takeaway from yesterday's afternoon session on all facets of mobile commerce, from contactless payments to...
Hardware, software, high-speed networks, uptake . it seems all the pieces are in place for mobile commerce to take off. Well, all the pieces except maybe a viable business model or two.That was the takeaway from last week's Mobile Financial Services Summit in Denver,...
Nearly one-third of the major financial organizations worldwide are planning to launch mobile banking services within the next two years, according to a new survey commissioned by Sybase 365, a subsidiary of mobile messaging services company Sybase Inc.About two-thirds of banks consider mobile banking...
Few mobile offerings have a longer - or more uninspiring - history in the United States than barcodes. But the odd-looking little images may finally be going somewhere.One of the first consumer-facing mobile barcode applications in the United States came to market about 10...
Firethorn Holdings L.L.C. has been a driving force behind many of the major mobile banking announcements within the past year. Recent news that chip maker Qualcomm Inc. would acquire the company has been taken as both a validation of the m-commerce space and a...
Hello! And welcome to our Thursday column, Worst of the Week. There's a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCRWirelessNews.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way....
Hello!And welcome to our Thursday column, Worst of the Week. There's a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCRWirelessNews.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way. We...
Editor's Note: Welcome to Reality Check, a feature for RCR Wireless News' new weekly e-mail service, Mobile Content and Culture. We've gathered a group of visionaries and veterans in the mobile content industry to give their insights into the marketplace. In the coming weeks...
Southeastern wireless provider Cellular South has introduced a new flat-rate plan that includes unlimited calls and data services.The carrier's True Unlimited Plan costs $80 per month for phones and $100 per month for PDA devices or smartphones. The offering includes unlimited local and long...
Mobile banking service provider Clairmail Inc. is partnering with digital infrastructure provider VeriSign Inc. to offer financial institutions multiple options for mobile banking as a managed service.The two companies made the announcement today, but said they have been working together for months and have...
Carriers in the United Kingdom are hoping to get users to PayForIt with their phones.The operators launched a standardized payment scheme designed to provide a consistent user interface regardless of carrier for mobile transactions of roughly $20 or less. Users are identified via the...
Regional wireless carrier Cellular South said it will roll out an m-commerce initiative early next year across all its markets following a successful three-month trial of mobile transaction technology.The carrier, which offers service in four southeastern states, partnered with Bank of America and others...
Mobile search provider Medio Systems Inc. and m-commerce technology company mPoria Inc. announced a strategic partnership to help retailers reach wireless users on their phones.Medio, which powers Verizon Wireless' Get It Now search offering, said it will provide mobile advertising campaigns to mPoria's retail...