AT&T Blasts Its Own Network

Just saw this ad for AT&T, where the odd man out gets a memo late because he doesn’t have AT&T. But I noticed the phone he uses (which receives the memo much later than everyone else) at :19 is actually an iPhone 3G with a sticker over the home button. As we all know, iPhones are currently exclusive to AT&T, thus making the message of this ad that those with iPhones will be “left behind”

 

Good job AT&T, this is a fail in so many different ways.

Kik Gets Kicked Off Blackberry App World

Soon after Kik’s meteoric rise in popularity over the last few weeks, RIM presents a pretty big road block in its way. After it “breached contractual obligations”, Kik has been removed from RIM’s Blackberry App World without much explanation as to why it happened, except that they.. well.. “breached contractual obligations”.. which I just said.

Apple and Android devices are not affected at all, which isn’t really a big surprise. Neither iPhone nor Android devices have a proprietary messaging service built into their OS. RIM, with it’s incredibly popular BBM program, does, and Kik looks like it could take BBM out of the equation for most when looking for a new smartphone. BBM is a huge selling point for RIM, especially in recent marketing campaigns which targets a much younger demographic (as opposed to businesses).

Kik’s popularity definitely poses a huge threat to this aspect to Blackberry sales as lets face it, a lot of people are slowly moving over to Androids and iPhones. If RIM loses it’s BBM appeal because Kik offers it for free to everyone with a data plan, the results could be devastating.

Also Kik’s contact acquisition methods are really weird. I’m pretty sure they collect the information through the Facebook app on who your friends are and it has definitely brought up a lot of privacy concerns.

Kik your texting plans

Mobile to Mobile messaging has truly never been easier. With Blackberry Messenger, Crackberry users now interact with each other thru a text based interface without the need for sms or mms. Basically, as long as bb users utilize the BBM feature, theres really no need for a texting plan. Same goes for iPhones and Ping and Whatsapp. Applications that utilize your data plan and send messages through the internet, rather than sms. The issue with these apps is that BBM only works among Blackberry users, and Ping and Whatsapp only works among iPhone users, making it impossible to communicate with people that use other phones. That is, until now. 

Two new apps have been released to allow interplatform text based communications. Kik and Pingchat. Both theses app allow Blackberry, iPhone and Android users to participate in real time text communications. Meaning Smartphone users of the three aforementioned platforms can essentially text each other through their data plans, rather than through their texting plans. 

Unlike BBM where your device is assigned a pin, Kik and Pingchat let you register your own user names and work very much like instant messaging on your phone. Now I’m currently testing out both Kik and Pingchat on my Blackberry Tour and so far, I think Kik’s got a smoother interface and a generally more appealing experience than Pingchat. Also I have more friends that use Kik than Pingchat but I’ll see how things pan out as time goes on. 

Pay Here or Be Square

Jack Dorsey, CEO and Founder of Twitter has launched another cutting edge product, this time in the Mobile realm in the form of a credit card reader. This device, called the Square, plugs into iPhones, iPads  and Android phones and becomes an instant credit card scanner. With this, people are able to use their mobile devices to accept payment as the general public becomes less likely to carry cash.

This, in addition to services like Venmo, where you can just pay and accept payment through your phone without any attachments, seem to be the future of monetary transactions.

Heres the CNN spot on the Square.
http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.element/apps/cvp/3.0/swf/cnn_416x234_embed.swf?context=embed&videoId=bestoftv/2010/10/25/exp.am.dorsey.square.cnn

Attn: NYC! Pay For Starbucks With Your Phone…?

Starbucks recently test ran a program where iPhone and Blackberry users could download an ape, and scan a barcode at the register at a Starbucks to pay for their coffee, rather than using cash or a Starbucks Card. The feedback has been positive and now they’re rolling this out to all the locations in NYC and Long Island.

Essentially, iPhone and Blackberry users download an app onto their phones that acts as a Starbucks Card. You load money into an account but instead of swiping a physical card, you swipe a QR Barcode infront of a scanner and there you go. It’ll be interesting to see how this affects further optimization of mobile technology and its integration into our lives.

10 years ago phones were only used to talk. Now you can use them to pay for coffee and with technology like Venmo increasing in popularity and utilization, the sheer existance of credit cards and even cash may eventually disappear.

Currently the utilization of Mobile may not be dire, but companies really need to start looking into and consider the option of including some sort of Mobile advertising into their Marketing Mix. It pains me to see so many companies still struggling to properly utilize social media and emerging technologies, especially when the technology is becoming so commonplace.

Food Trucks and Social Media

I saw this great article and video on Mashable yesterday and I just had to write something about this. Pretty much this video interviews the owners of some mobile food trucks in New York City and how they use social media to keep in touch with their customers. Going to school in Philadelphia, food trucks were definitely a staple of campus eating and probably the preferred choice vs the school cafeteria for the majority of the student body.

These guys use social media to interact directly with their end consumer by tweeting and updating Facebook about daily specials, their location for that day (very important if your storefront is on wheels) and other updates about their business throughout the day. Not only that they have the opportunity to get feedback directly from the customer about their views on pricing, taste, quality, etc. There’s no better marketing research than free marketing research and this type of research is about as accurate as it gets.

Its great to see business using social media to positively impact their day to day business. Social Media definitely isn’t the perfect solution for everyone, but when implemented correctly, it can make a huge difference.

Here’s the Mashable video.