PayPal Launches Mobile Express Checkout To Enable One-Click Buying On Smartphones

eBay has made it fairly clear that mobile is the future for e-commerce. And the numbers only reinforce this strategy- mobile payments are poised to reach $200 billion by 2012, according to Juniper Research. So, of course, eBay is wants to make its crown jewel, PayPal, the leader in the mobile payments space. In fact, PayPal’s mobile transactions have grown as smartphone usage has increased, from $25 million in 2008 to $141 million in 2009. In 2010, PayPal expects more than half a billion dollars in mobile payment volume with more than 5 million members regularly using PayPal from their mobile devices. Today, PayPal is making it easier for merchants and consumers to pay for goods on their smartphones with the launch of Mobile Express Checkout. Mobile Express Checkout is the mobile version of PayPal’s Express Checkout service , which is a one-stop payment option streamlines the checkout process for consumers. A buyer will not have to reenter shipping, billing, or payment information for a PayPal payment, expediting the checkout process. All they need to do is enter their PayPal account login. It’s similar in theory to Amazon’s one click ordering option. Merchant Express Checkout has been optimized for smartphone screens and also features strong fraud detection, says PayPal. Mobile Express Checkout is initially being rolled out on the iPhone and Android 2.0 (and higher) devices by a few retailers, including Nike and Buy.com, over the next few weeks. The technology will eventually become available to all retailers in the next few months. PayPal sees this new mobile technology has an opportunity to allow the company’s 85 million members to easily buy goods on their phones using PayPal’s technology versus inputing a credit card. The company is sure to be on to something with this strategy-inputing your credit card, shipping and billing info on a phone is an arduous and time consuming task. Automating this process is surely the future of mobile payments and shopping. Of course, it’s safe to assume the credit card companies, like Mastercard and Visa, will also be heading down this road soon. CrunchBase Information PayPal eBay Information provided by CrunchBase

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PayPal Launches Mobile Express Checkout To Enable One-Click Buying On Smartphones

Square Delays Mass Roll-Out, Admits They Began Before Things Were “Fully Baked”

When Jack Dorsey’s new startup, Square , was first unveiled in December, there was a lot of excitement about it. And rightly so . It looked like it could revolutionize the way individuals accept payments for their work using their smartphones. But the road to the revolution has been a bit rocky. Today, Dorsey sent an email to the early adopters of Square explaining some of the reasons for delays in getting the product up to speed — and announcing a new indefinite delay. Of note, he admits that, “ we’ve let our excitement get the best of us and have released parts of Square before they were fully baked .” Square had hoped to have the service ready to roll in “early 2010,” but it’s already the middle of the year now and many users are still without units. Dorsey says that while initial hardware shortage issues have been resolved (by sending co-founder Jim McKelvey to China where the devices are made), now a credit processing issue is hampering the service. As such, Square has decided to halt the mass shipment of Square readers (the little hardware dongle required to read credit cards). They are now “ rethinking and expanding our underwriting infrastructure ,” Dorsey notes. The main problem now is that to ensure credit fraud doesn’t run wild on Square, they limit transactions numbers — but customers are complaining those limits are too low. Square agrees, so they’re trying to figure out a new way to handle things. So when might this problem be resolved? “ We’re working on the ETA for mass shipments ,” Dorsey tells us via email. “ We want to make sure the underwriting is solid to manage the fraud and risk, ” he continues. Below, find the full email Dorsey sent to Square users: Dear Square user, We announced Square with the phrase: “0 to $60 in under 10 seconds.” Square’s goal is to enable people to accept payments immediately, everywhere. We realize the amount of time we’ve taken to ship our Square readers has been frustrating, sometimes confusing, and has generated a number of questions. When we announced the company last December, we estimated Square would be ready in the U.S. sometime in early 2010. Since then, we’ve let our excitement get the best of us and have released parts of Square before they were fully baked. A recent email from our support team to a Square user sums up where we are: Until recently, we were facing a big hardware shortage, but that is now resolved (we sent our co-founder Jim to China for a couple weeks to arrange better manufacturing, and that did the trick). The problem has transitioned to something we’ve been working on simultaneously, a credit processing and risk issue. We need to strengthen our underwriting infrastructure so that we can handle the huge demand for readers and still manage the risk of chargebacks and fraud. This is the last thing preventing us from shipping readers as fast as we’d like, and we have pretty much the entire team working on it. The way we are handling the risk of chargebacks and fraud is through transaction limits, but we have received feedback that those limits are too low. We are rethinking and expanding our underwriting infrastructure to address this issue. As soon as we finish, we will send you an email to confirm that you would like us to run a credit check (or you can cancel your request to process cards with Square which will securely remove your personal information). We will then ship your free card reader and activate your account to accept card payments. We thank you for your continued patience as we work to deliver a utility you can use every day and for allowing us the time to get it right. Jack Dorsey Square CEO CrunchBase Information Square Information provided by CrunchBase

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Square Delays Mass Roll-Out, Admits They Began Before Things Were “Fully Baked”

comScore: Browsers And Apps Neck & Neck On Smartphones; Social Networking Reigns

We all know that with the rise of smartphone platforms like the iPhone and Android, mobile browsing and app usage is skyrocketing. But what are people actually doing when they whip out their phones (other than playing Doodle Jump)? Internet analytics firm comScore has just released a new report detailing just that. The conclusions aren’t terribly surprising: on both smartphones and featurephones, social networking dominates. Other popular categories include news and online banking, but these trends diverge a bit depending on whether you’re looking at native applications or browser-based websites. According to the study, native application and browser usage have seen strong growth on smartphones in the last year (with increases of 111% and 112%, respectively). In April, 80% of smartphone users fired up native applications, while 78% used their phone’s browser. These figures are important — during a presentation announcing iAds, Steve Jobs stated that people weren’t using search on their smartphones, but were trending more toward applications (note that not everyone who used their browser was using it to search). In the same time span, a mere 19% of users on feature-phones used their browser, and only 17% used applications. But despite those relatively meager proportions, the ubiquity of feature-phones means that they still account for almost half of all mobile browser and app usage. As for what activities users are engaging in from their phones, social networking is king, especially on native apps. Usage of native social networking applications grew 240% in the last year, with 90% growth in browser-based social networking. The other leading categories for native applications are news apps, sports, and banking. For browser-based sites and webapps, the most popular use-cases after social networking are banking, general reference, sports, and search. One other thing to note: comScore is apparently omitting games from its analysis, which is almost certainly the most popular category for native applications. CrunchBase Information comScore Information provided by CrunchBase

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comScore: Browsers And Apps Neck & Neck On Smartphones; Social Networking Reigns

AT&T: Wi-Fi Network Usage Grows Fivefold To 53+ Million Connections

AT&T reported today that the use of its more than 20,000 U.S. Wi-Fi hotspots surged to 53.1 million connections in the first quarter, which is nearly five times higher than the 10.7 million connections made in the first quarter last year, and more than half of the 85.5 million total Wi-Fi connections made in 2009. AT&T attributes the surge to the rise in smartphone usage. As customers turn to Wi-Fi enabled smartphones and devices, like iPhone and Android phones, they are increasingly relying on Wi-Fi hotspots to stay connected when they’re on the go. At the end of the first quarter, the company reported that nearly 32 million AT&T customers had Wi-Fi access included with their smartphones, high speed internet and 3G LaptopConnect plans. And in the first quarter of 2010, 69 percent of Wi-Fi connections were made from smartphones and integrated devices, up from 35 percent a year ago in the first quarter of 2009. AT&T also reported that the total number of AT&T broadband connections, which includes both wireline broadband and wireless LaptopConnect cards, grew by 278,000 in the first quarter to reach 17.5 million in service. Yesterday, the communications giant reported a slight increase in revenue, as the company continued to add more wireless customers. AT&T added 1.9 million new wireless subscribers in the quarter, the biggest first-quarter gain in the company’s history. Of course, not everything is rosy with AT&T’s network; the 3G network in San Francisco and New York has been notoriously unreliable. CrunchBase Information AT&T Information provided by CrunchBase

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AT&T: Wi-Fi Network Usage Grows Fivefold To 53+ Million Connections

ZoomSafer Raises $1 Million, Could Be Your Next Personal Safe Driving Assistant

ZoomSafer , developer of safe driving software for mobile phones, has raised an additional $1 million round of financing from SugarOak Holdings . Daniel Baker, CEO of SugarOak Holdings, has joined the company’s board of directors as part of the funding deal. Zoomsafer markets what it refers to as a “personal safe driving assistant”, software for mobile phones that aims to prevent distracted driving. Once downloaded to a mobile phone (Blackberry and selected Windows Mobile devices only for now, with support for Android, iPhone and other smartphones in the works ) the ZoomSafer software detects when the user is driving and automatically puts the phone into ’safe drive mode’. That way, inbound alerts are suppressed and the phone’s keypad and screen are locked to eliminate the temptation to text, email or dial while driving. Additionally, ZoomSafer offers a variety of customizable and hands-free services so users can stay connected while driving, including auto-replies to incoming texts and emails to let others know that you’re driving, one-touch access to voice dialer for making hands-free outbound calls and the receipt of hands-free inbound calls from priority contacts. The company says it will use the additional capital to expand marketing and sales and deliver enhanced policy controls and analytics to help consumers, large-scale corporate fleet customers and everything in between ensure safe, legal and hands-free use of mobile phones while driving. Here’s a pretty explanatory video of how Zoomsafer works: CrunchBase Information ZoomSafer Information provided by CrunchBase

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ZoomSafer Raises $1 Million, Could Be Your Next Personal Safe Driving Assistant

PayPal’s iPhone App Hits 1 Million Downloads In Under 3 Weeks

Ecommerce giant eBay has been reaching big milestones with its mobile apps, and apparently PayPal , its electronic payments subsidiary, is striking a chord with mobile users around the globe as well. The company, which boasts more than 81 million active accounts in 190 markets and 24 currencies around the world, says its new iPhone app ( iTunes link ) has been downloaded an impressive one million times in less than three weeks since its debut . With the new PayPal Mobile iPhone app, users can split restaurant checks, collect money for events, set reminders for recurring payments, donate to their favorite causes and manage their PayPal accounts. Thanks to an integration with Bump Technologies , users can exchange information and quickly close PayPal transactions simply by ‘bumping’ (tapping) their smartphones together. PayPal Mobile supports fifteen languages and also features a global currency calculator. It has been in the App Store, free of charge, since mid-2008. The company also boasts applications for Android and Blackberry devices, but to date hasn’t released download numbers for those platforms. CrunchBase Information PayPal App Store Information provided by CrunchBase

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PayPal’s iPhone App Hits 1 Million Downloads In Under 3 Weeks

David Pogue on Cellphone Trends for 2009

David Pogue, personal-technology columnist for the New York Times, delivers an entertaining talk about the cellular technology trends of 2009. EG is the celebration of the American entertainment industry. Since 1984, Richard Saul Wurman has created extraordinary gatherings about learning and understanding. EG is a rich extension of these ideas – a conference that explores the attitude of understanding in music, film, television, radio, technology, advertising, gaming, interactivity and the web – The Entertainment Gathering David Pogue is the weekly tech columnist for the New York Times, a weekly CNBC reporter, and an Emmy-winning correspondent for CBS News Sunday Morning. He has written or co-written seven books in the “…for Dummies” series (including Apple computers, magic, opera, and classical music); and in 1999, he launched his own series of computer how-to books, called the Missing Manual series, which includes over 60 titles.

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David Pogue on Cellphone Trends for 2009