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The Telecom Digest for November 15, 2011
Volume 30 : Issue 290 : "text" Format
====== 30 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======
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Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2011 06:52:55 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Paying by smartphone
Message-ID: <p0624080acae654e65035@[172.19.0.77]>
No cash, card? No problem
Paying by smartphone is an emerging trend
By Michael B. Farrell
Globe Staff / November 12, 2011
Is your wallet the next relic of the digital age? Why pay with cash
or plastic when you can use a smartphone?
That is what Ainsley Onstott did on a recent afternoon in Cambridge's
Kendall Square. She simply showed her iPhone to pay for a sandwich at
Sebastians Cafe. "They scan it, and I get my receipt e-mailed to
me,'' said Onstott, 26, a special events manager at the American
Heart Association.
With about 35 percent of Americans carrying smartphones, the mobile
commerce market is spreading fast. Anyone with an iPhone, Android, or
BlackBerry can download an app for making purchases. And merchants
can plug in credit card readers for on-the-spot sales.
The trend is just emerging, but Boston technology start-ups, banks,
credit card companies, telecommunication firms, and retailers are
making big investments to make it easier for people to pay by phone.
Earlier this week, Apple Inc. became the latest firm to make that
happen when it introduced EasyPay, an app that enables Apple Store
customers to buy products with an iPhone by using its camera as a bar
code scanner.
Mobile payments are just a sliver of retail sales. They accounted for
$3 billion in sales in 2010, or 1 percent of e-commerce transactions,
but they are expected to double this year and reach $31 billion by
2016, according to Forrester Research of Cambridge.
Onstott, the Sebastians Cafe customer, used an app from LevelUp, a
service launched in March by Cambridge social media gaming start-up
SCVNGR. Its app gives smartphone users individualized Quick Response
codes for merchants to scan.
So far, LevelUp can be used at more than 180 places in the Boston
area, from coffee shops to upscale restaurants. At Sebastians in
Kendall Square, about 5 percent of customers use LevelUp, or about
600 customers a month.
...
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2011/11/12/cash_credit_card_and____smartphones_accepted/
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