The nine most dreaded words in American business: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google are eyeing your market. Which industries--and companies--are the Fab Four most interested in disrupting?READ»
Digital currency Bitcoin is regulated by no nation or bank. Critics say it's used by drug dealers, legislators are threatening crackdowns, and some argue the whole idea is an utter scam. Sounds nefarious--but it's just like the history of "real" money.READ»
Dorsey and Square COO Keith Rabois talk to Fast Company about their unintentional, design-driven revolution, what it means for the cash register space, the deals space, and the future of buying ... everything.READ»
Google is hiring a senior manager to drive its mobile "wallet and offers" division. Meanwhile China's version of Foursquare, Jiepang, is testing NFC check-in stickers. All indications point to NFC coming to your smartphone sooner rather than later. READ»
Visa is trying out a low-tech location-based offers system with Gap that doesn't require check-ins or even a smartphone. It's clever, but basically is a testing ground for the coming wave of NFC purchases.READ»
Visa has announced a new personal-payments system for U.S. card holders to send and receive funds. The system will greatly increase the scope of person-to-person digital payments globally, and represents new competition for scrappier (and more flexible?) contenders like Paypal. READ»
Instead of fighting about consumer protections verses consumer demand, we should collectively aspire to create world-class financial freedom in America. It is good for people, it is good for business, and it's darn patriotic.READ»
We've seen a number of contactless credit card enterprises hitting the news recently, backed by big names and with slightly different notions about how the technology works. But the news that AT&T and Verizon are forming a joint venture to compete in this space totally transforms the market from a slightly boring, and long-term one, to a dynamic and exciting one. READ»
Twitter creator Jack Dorsey's much-vaunted Square device, the iPhone plug-in credit card reader, may have bigger problems than formidable competition. It seems someone other than Square owns the patent on the technology.
In fact ...READ»
Amazon's patented one-click purchasing has been the boon companion of plenty of impulse purchases. Now the retailer is looking to bring the one-click experience to mobile phones for businesses that use its PayPal competitor, Amazon ...READ»
Facebook has begun testing a proprietary payment system with three of its applications. You can now use these apps--which include GroupCard, PackRat, Birthday Calendar and Facebook's own credits ...READ»
There's a rumor that the majority of first posts from newbies on Twitter goes something like "Just trying to work out what Twitter is for!" It's undoubtedly a successful invention, yet sometimes it feels like a solution in ...READ»
Obopay is an payment system that works on your cell phone--kind of like a mobile PayPal. The service is cheap, easy to use, and fantastically convenient. Not only that, it's well-backed; today Nokia [NOK] announced it would funnel ...READ»