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By Jesse Cryderman
As Spring arrived, so did several innovative services that had previously only been showcased at trade shows or debated in developer forums. These services capitalize on trends in (FILL IN). Whether they will prove to be as innovative as their respective marketing campaigns promise remains to be seen, but here’s a rundown of some of the more interesting launches.
Android In-App Billing
In-app billing for the Android platform finally became a reality, as the SDK went live March 30 after a few miscues earlier in the year. In-app billing opens the door for advanced monetization strategies. A message to developers on the Android Developers website explained: “You can use the service to sell a wide range of content, including downloadable content such as media files or photos, and virtual content such as game levels or potions.”
PapayaMobile, a 10-million-strong social gaming network,
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In-app billing opens the door for advanced monetization strategies. |
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them to computers or Android
smartphones via a lightweight app. It’s
truly a new form of digital music
delivery, like a personal Pandora. With
5GB of free space, and incentives like
20GB additional free space with the
purchase of an MP3 album from the
Amazon store, the service is poised to
take off, especially since it’s the only
major player in the market right now.
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was one of the first to offer in-app billing, enabling users to execute “micro transactions.” CEO Si Shen spoke of the “great monetization potential” of the in-app billing solution in a statement.
Specifically, “In-app billing uses an asynchronous message loop to convey billing requests and billing responses between your application and the Android Market server.” All that is required to monetize features within an app is an Android Market publisher account. This feature should lure even more developers away from an Apple-exclusive worldview. It also is a great example of a working method to monetize data services in real-time. Carriers could jump into this sector and provide real-time premium data services, even to post-paid customers.
Cloud Music
Amazon beat Apple and a host of other
competitors to the cloud-based music
market with the launch of its Cloud
Drive and Cloud Player services, which
allow users to store their digital music
libraries in the cloud and then stream
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Personal Payments and NFC
New, low-cost methods for processing transactions, or making transactions easier or more personal were revealed this month in the form of personal payment systems from Visa and American Express, and several announcements in the Near Field Communication (NFC) arena.
While PayPal has been the leader in personal payments for some time, they’ve also garnered a bad reputation in some circles for locking down accounts and operating without the consumer protective rules that regulate banks. Seeking to carve into the personal payment market, Visa’s new service lets customers send funds to an account number, an email address, or even a mobile number, and has the buy-in of major banks in the U.S. and partnerships with CashEdge Inc. and Fiserv Inc., two of the leading providers of electronic person-to-person payment, account transfer and bill payment services to banks. The service should be live in the second half of 2011.
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