Compass Intelligence

Among the numerous news reports about T-Mobile's G1 Google Android-based mobile phone, Visa’s plan to launch Android based mobile applications caught my eye.  The key words are “Alert”, “Discount” and a hidden one, “Mobile Phone Advertisement”.

According to Visa, the first three mobile services to be developed for the Android platform are— alerts, offers and location help.  

-          Alerts: Consumers will receive near real-time notification of purchase activity.

-          Offers: Consumers will receive targeted offers from merchants directly to their phone. These offers range from discounts to loyalty offers.

-          Locator:  Consumers will be notified of the nearby locations of merchants sending them offers, or of an ATM that accepts Visa.  

Credit card fraud is a growing concern especially in a recession time. “Every recession since the late ’50s has been associated with an increase in crime and, in particular, property crime and robbery, which would be most responsive to changes in economic conditions,” according to a New York Times article last week*.   The Visa mobile phone “Alerts” on credit card transaction could be very useful for consumers to keep an eye on their wallet.

In today’s down economy, saving money is becoming a priority in the minds of many consumers. More and more people are turning to coupons and discounts to save a little extra money. Mobile phone “discount offers” could help people to save money whenever and wherever possible.

A mobile wallet watcher and coupon books look attractive to consumers. However, the service may not be free. Consumers would enroll for Visa mobile services via their mobile device in order to access the services. Are consumers going to buy the services? It depends on three things.

-          Will Google G1 phones prove to be a winner with consumers, especially among Generation Y users?  Based on a recent report on Mobile Banking from Compass Intelligence, younger users and smart phone users are the driving forces behind mobile banking as shown in the following chart. 

-          How much do the Visa mobile services cost?

-          How difficult is it to implement the service? How easy is it to turn the services, especially the “discount offers”, on and off?

The “discount offers” service could also bring in additional revenue for mobile service providers such as mobile phone advertisement fees from businesses who wants to attract customers by offering discounts via mobile phones.  Sounds familiar? Like a mobile version of Google online advertising?   If the service will generate income for the service provider, why not make it free for consumers? The mobile coupon book would be very welcome by consumers if it is free like most paper coupon books. 

What do you think of the Visa mobile services? Are you going to give them a try when they are available?

GET A FREE DOWNLOAD ON MOBILE BANKING OR SEE DETAILS ON THE LATEST MOBILE BANKING REPORT: http://www.compassintelligence.com/content.aspx?title=MobileBanking

Written By: Nian Cheng           http://www.compassintelligence.com/

Well it seems that there is a plethora of new smartphones hitting the market, especially the ones with touch screen capabilities.  To follow up on my entry on 9/17 and 10/8, it appears that the G1 (the Google Android Phone) is set to debut today and made available via T-Mobile USA.  Again, this phone was manufactured by HTC.  Now I like this phone because it does have the slide out keyboard, which if you are a Blackberry user or really like the QWERTY keyboard touch and feel, then this fills that need.  According to a CNN article, "T-Mobile said it will begin selling the G1 for $179 with a two-year contract. The device hits U.S. stores October 22 and heads to Britain in November and other European countries early next year."  One drawback to the G1 for corporate or business users is unlike the iPhone and BlackBerrys, the G1 has a very limited ability to connect to corporate e-mail servers. But, I am sure that will be a priority for Google in the near future. 

To see the demo on the new G1 on T-Mobile's site go here:http://www.t-mobileg1.com/

In other smartphone news, RIM announced a great bit of news on their mobile applications plans.  Very similar to the Apple Application store, RIM has also announced their plans for the application developer community.  It will open its web Application storefront in March of 2009 and developers can start working with RIM in December of this year.  Yesterday I received an email from their analyst relations department announcing the following:

• RIM to Launch BlackBerry Application Storefront and BlackBerry Application Center

• RIM to Bring the Power of the Web to BlackBerry Application Development

• RIM Updates BlackBerry Developer Tools

• RIM Takes Push to a New Level with BlackBerry Web Signals Technology for Third Party Content Services

All of these announcements are available on RIM's website on their Press Release site.  Stay tuned, as I am sure more will be coming from the Smartphone market news arena!

BlackBerry Storm Set to Debut in October

As a follow up to the blog entry on September17th, the BlackBerry Storm will be launching sometime in October through AT&T and sometime in November through Verizon.  This is BlackBerry's version of the touch screen smartphone.  This device is expected to be targeted to both consumers and businesses.  There are 2 models available, the 9500 and 9530.  I believe the differences between the two is that one has Wi-Fi capabilities and the other does not.  In addition, here is a highlight of some of the features:

• 3.2 MP Camera and video camera
• GPS
• USB
• Bluetooth
• QWERTY and SureType keyboard
• 3.25 inch touch screen
• Media Card Slot
• Preloaded Applications include Facebook, Windows Live Messenger, GoogleTalk, AIM, Flickr, ICQ, and Yahoo! Messenger
• Ane More...

Tell me what you think about this any other touch screen smartphones. www.compassintelligence.com

Prepared By Stephanie Atkinson (http://twitter.com/CompassIntel)

Touchscreen Smartphone Update 

Really cool news.  I always like competition and it is about time there are more devices entering into the smartphone market.  Now this may not be good for Blackberry (RIM) and iPhone (Apple), but competitive devices will only make these devices better and customer friendly.  And, eventually these devices will have more business functionality and applications, which I believe is going to really put competitive pressure on the entire smartphone market.

This week T-Mobile announced the upcoming launch of their new Google Android phone coming out in October.  The official announcement of this new device called the "Dream" manufacturered by HTC and also called the G1, is expected to happen in New York at a press conference on September 23rd.  If T-Mobile and Google can leverage its existing client base and information resources to garner as much attention on this new device coming out as iApple did with the iPhone, then this could really impact the market.  Now this phone is targeted towards consumers, so I am waiting to see more business-oriented announcements coming soon as well.

In addition, there are a number of other phones that may not be as popular as the iPhone, but have many of the same features and functionality (touchscreen).  Some of these include:

• Sprint's Touch Diamond and Touch Pro designed by HTC
• AT&T's Touch Pro called "Fuze" designed by HTC
• Sprint's "Instinct" designed by Samsung
• Others, we will mention those as they roll out

What do you think about any of these phones?  Are you ready to adopt one of these touch-screen smartphones?  Please share your thoughts...

Written by Stephanie Atkinson (http://www.compassintelligence.com/)

Social Networking at Compass Intelligence

We here at Compass Intelligence have been thinking about social networking for quite some time.  We all personally have been doing it for a while, but now it is time for us to act from a professional or business social networking standpoint.  After going to a free website review site to analyze our websites http://www.compassintelligence.com/ and http://www.compass-intelligence.com/, it really opened our eyes to what some of these social networking sites can do for us.  Here are just a few ways these tools and sites can help our firm:

• The more places we are, the more likely we will be found at the top of the list on Google
• We can use these social networking tools to promote our business, press releases, podcasts, and more
• We get more traffic on our website, which may lead to more business
• Our blog is being recognized by other blogs sites and links
• Our overall exposure on the web is increasing to a much higher degree now

Now you may ask, what are some of the things we have been doing from a social networking standpoint.  I will not let you know everything, because some of it is top secret, but here are a few things that may help you:

• Start Digging http://www.digg.com/
• Start Twittering and Twhirling, even AT&T and a few other vendors are already starting to get in the game, check out CompassIntel on twitter (http://www.twitter.com/)
• Join Technorati, list your website and more
• Do more with your blog and link to all the tools that spread the word
• Get to know del.icio.us, linkedin, facebook, myspace, stumbleupon, and the others out there
• Get your blog listed on all the free blog sites
• Get your company listed on all the free business directories
• Get your company listed on the top fee-based directories
• Integrate and tie together press releases, blogs, free downloads, podcasts, and other forms of communications

What do you think about businesses and social networking?  I would love to learn what you are doing.

Stephanie Atkinson

There are a growing number of online websites that provide a network of lenders to support loans for small businesses.  Now these sites are interesting because it is not banks or financial institutions loaning the money, but everyday people like you and me.  This is not only cool because it gets the banks out of the equation, but the people lending the money can also track the progress of the company and can feel very involved in the success of that company it lended the funds to.  Some of these sites are microloan sites for personal loans and some are specific to projects or small businesses.  Borrowers can state their case or cause and hope that a lender will bite.  There are several different business models out there with these sites, but all are interesting!  Here are a few of the interesting sites that I found:

www.zopa.com

www.prosper.com

www.fynanz.com

www.greennote.com

www.kiva.com

There are so many cool online tools and Web 2.0 (FREE) applications popping up on the Internet!  So today, I just want to talk about a few and share some of the links I think can be quite useful for the SOHO (Small Office Home Office) and Small Business.  Below are a list and links to a few that are interesting:

• www.dovico.com - Tracking and Timesheet Management Software.  They have a free 30-day trial for the hosted ASP solution.
• www.zoho.com - This is the coolest and most popular in my opinion.  This has numerous FREE and paid for solutions for the SOHO business.  Includes solutions such as a word processor (Like MS Word), Spreadsheet creator (Like Excel), Presentation creator (like Powerpoint), project management, CRM, and many other online tools. 
• www.google.com/analytics - Free monitoring of your website traffic
• www.google.com - Other free software on Google includes Google Earth for maps and views of the earth, Picasa for editing photos, StarOffice (word processing and more), and many others.  Those specific to productivity include Blogger, Calendar, Docs, Sketchup, and GooglePack...a collection of free software for your PC.
• www.openoffice.org - Rivals MS Office and its Free, this is an opensource free download that allows users to create text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, diagrams, and databases, as well as HTML and XML documents
• NetNote Client - Free software that allows you to create notes on your desktop and send to others. It has network capabilities (send and receive notes, Instant Messaging), text notes, audio attachments, alarms and models (templates).  http://www.download.com/NetNote-Client/3000-2347_4-10001853.html
• www.carbonite.com - Perfect for the SOHO or small business needing to back up their files remotely...all files are backed up online...so if you crash you can login later and restore all files or just the ones you want.  We actually use it at Compass Intelligence and it is great!
• www.skype.com - of course many of know about Skype, but did you know it is great for chatting, video phone calls, and more...this is great for the virtual office and staying connected to colleagues

 Of course you can always go to sites such as CNET and ZDNet to see a large list of free software, but just be careful where you look and be aware of those 30-day trials that ask for credit card information.

Essentially, there is a growing list of free software and free online tools (Web 2.0) that are popping up everywhere across the web. I will keep my eyes and ears open for any new ones and send an update next quarter on the latest cool tools on the web.  If you have any others you would like to add, please send me a note or comment, as I am sure others would like to know.  Until next time....

Stephanie