A look at one of Square's receipts for Sightglass Coffee, a San Francisco establishment in which founder Jack Dorsey has invested.
(Credit: Square)Small business is front and center for Square, the new mobile-payments company founded by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey. Previously in a quasi-stealth mode (OK, more like San Francisco's worst-kept secret), Square has now launched in beta, is accepting e-mail requests for preliminary accounts, and has put up a basic Web site to explain the company's premise.
The Square hardware is a small, inexpensive card reader that plugs into the audio jack of a compatible device, including a mobile phone (it's starting with the iPhone and currently has job postings up for BlackBerry and Android engineers). It processes credit card payments, geotags their locations on a map, and e-mails a receipt to the buyer.
"Even though a majority of payments has moved to plastic cards, accepting payments from cards is still difficult, requiring long applications, expensive hardware, and an overly complex experience," the Square Web site explains, talking about how the company premise was hatched when now-executives heard about an artist whose sales were hindered by the fact that he was unable to accept credit card payments.
What hadn't been reported before is that loyalty programs and microdonations are built in as well. Square can track a history of your purchases at a given establishment for discounts and promotions, effectively replacing the buy-10, get-one-free card at coffee shops. Additionally, Square donates a cent of each transaction to a nonprofit organization that the merchant chooses.
CNET first reported the company's name (it had been code-named "Squirrel") as well as some of the details about its business model: low production costs, possibly to the point where the devices can be distributed for free, and profits from transaction fees. (It's not clear whether they actually will make them free.)
Square has set up offices in San Francisco, New York, and St. Louis, with a team of 11 employees announced on the Web site. It's backed by Khosla Ventures and some angel investors.
A test 'Square' in action, and a screenshot of the geo-tagged receipt.
(Credit: Engadget)Well, we finally have a glimpse at "Square," the new mobile payments venture coming from Twitter co-founder and chairman Jack Dorsey. As expected, it's a little hardware add-on that can turn an iPhone into a credit card reader.
The funny part: Details about the small-business-oriented project have been on the Web for months. It was just that nobody had put two and two together until some eagle-eyed folks at Engadget realized that a URL on a screenshot of the "Square iPhone Payments Venture" first reported by Coolhunting matched a domain registered to Dorsey.
Dorsey, who stepped down as Twitter CEO almost exactly a year ago, is headquartering the company in New York, though we hear he already has employees in both Gotham and San Francisco. Its Web site will likely be located at SquareUp.com. Currently, that site is a collection of links to a smattering of businesses, including Sightglass Coffee, a new San Francisco coffee shop in which Dorsey has invested. (Wanna bet they're testing Square out there?)
From Coolhunting:
The innovation is in a small, plastic card reader that fits in to the headphone jack of an iPhone (or iPod Touch) and transfers the credit card's swipe data to the app. After the employee enters the amount to charge, the customer confirms by scrawling their signature with their finger and then either one enters the customer's email address to send the receipt to. The payment is processed by Square for a small percentage plus a fixed fee; the funds are transferred directly to the store's bank account, cutting both time and complexity on the processing side. The customer's receipt includes a map showing the location of the transaction which is handy for those who record, sort and file such things.
We heard that the venture is being called Square rather than "Squirrel," its originally reported name (according to TechCrunch's MG Siegler, this is because it looks kind of like an acorn) due to some unclear legal-copyright-licensing-whatnot issue. CNET News first reported the name change along with the news that Dorsey had been an angel investor in location-based mobile navigation start-up Foursquare.
Funding a hardware venture is typically more expensive than a Web-based one for obvious reasons: the up-front cost of production and manufacturing.
But two sources with knowledge of Square's logistics said that Dorsey believes he can keep production costs extremely low, possibly manufacturing a "square" at a cost of about 40 cents apiece. The company may then even give the devices away for free, making money instead on transaction fees. That's the old Gillette razor business model--make the razors cheap or even free, but replacement blades more expensive.
Regardless, we hear Dorsey has been working on a funding round.
After having just modified its stance on cell phone exclusivity deals last week, Verizon Wireless said it is also willing to compromise on roaming service agreements with smaller mobile providers.
Currently, carriers are not required to offer roaming services to competing providers in areas where the rivals own spectrum but have not built out network coverage. However, some of the smaller carriers, such as Leap Wireless, say this only hurts customers and they need roaming service while they build out their network. As a result, they have lobbied for lawmakers to address this home roaming issue.
Hoping to appease government officials and other involved parties, Verizon offered up a compromise in a letter to House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.). In it, Verizon President and CEO Lowell McAdam said the carrier, which has vehemently protested the practice in the past, would support a statute or FCC rule that would require it to provide roaming services with the condition that it's limited to two years and in some exceptions, three years.
At the end of the letter, McAdam writes,"We believe our proposal strikes a fair balance between addressing the concerns raised about home roaming while encouraging carriers to invest in their spectrum and build their networks."
However, some say that's not good enough. The Rural Cellular Association said it does not support Verizon's offer and in a statement to Reuters on Wednesday, Leap Wireless' director of government affairs, Laurie Itkin, said:
"Verizon itself has relied on roaming agreements for over two decades as it's built out its network and acquired competitors, but now has unilaterally decided that its remaining competitors are only entitled to roaming for two or three years."
While response to Verizon's offers, both on roaming service agreements and cell phone exclusivity deals, hasn't been positive, Verizon has been the first of the major carriers to be proactive and publicly address these issues, so you have to give them some credit, though we're not completely buying the whole "we've been misrepresented" plea.
(Additional sources: Wireless Week, Phone Scoop, and eWeek)
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos shows off the Kindle DX
(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET News)NEW YORK--Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos unveiled the much-anticipated large-screen Kindle e-reader in a lecture hall Wednesday at the downtown Pace University. Called the Kindle DX, the new device is geared toward readers of personal and professional documents, newspapers, and magazines--and textbooks, a potentially huge target market.
The debut of the bigger Kindle wasn't exactly a secret: rumors of a larger-screen Kindle had been around for quite some time, and concrete reports began to surface earlier this week.
Amazon's Kindle DX
(Credit: Amazon)According to Amazon's Kindle DX page, the device has the following:
• A 9.7-inch display with 16 shades of gray. (The standard Kindle has a 6-inch display.)
• Capacity to hold up to 3,500 books, periodicals, and documents.
• An auto-rotating screen to show either portrait or landscape views.
• A built-in PDF reader.
• 3G wireless network support with no monthly fees or annual contracts.
• Battery capacity to "read for days without charging."
• Text-to-speech abilities to read publications aloud.
Several of those features are shared with the current Kindle 2, but several are unique to the Kindle DX: the native PDF reader that doesn't require the files to be converted, the rotating display, the 3,500-publication capacity compared to 1,500 for the Kindle 2, and of course the larger screen.
... Read more
On Thursday, Amazon announced a new program for customers to trade in used video game titles in return for credit at Amazon.com. The program is launching with around 1,500 titles, all of which can be filtered and searched by platform. Once users have picked out the games they own and would like to exchange for credit, Amazon provides a pre-paid label that covers the cost of shipping. Then, after Amazon confirms that the right games were sent (and not scratched to oblivion), it credits the user's account.
As part of its introduction, Amazon is offering those who trade in their games for credit a 10 percent markdown on games or video game accessories in the next two weeks.
What's a really big game-changer here (no pun intended) is that Amazon is, for the most part, offering higher trade-in prices than companies that have been in this business for more than a decade. And, instead of using that cash as in-store credit to buy more games, Amazon's credit can be used on anything else it sells.
Here are some examples of Amazon's pricing on popular titles from various game consoles compared to two of the largest video game retailers (highest trade-in price is highlighted in bold):
These are just a few of the titles I could find prices for across all three companies, but you can see the trend. One thing worth noting is that Game Crazy has a $9.99-a-year "MVP" program that boosts up its prices ever so slightly, and in some cases a little closer to Amazon's offering. However, for comparison's sake, the prices above were taken from non-MVP trade-in rates. Also, Toys R' Us, which has begun a limited rollout of its own games trade-in service, was not included since it's not yet a national program.
Between this and the casual games download service Amazon launched in early February, it's clear the company is trying to get its foot a little deeper into an industry that appears to be recession-proof. Last year, GameStop pulled in close to $2 billion in sales during Q2, which is due in large part to its trade-in business. With people looking to liquidate assets to pay off debt, or come up with spare cash, it could one of this year's big growth industries.
One thing still missing, however, is a storefront for selling used games back to buyers. Presumably Amazon will either be re-selling these to other used retailers, or building in its own stock of used games into its used items sale option.
Update: Corrected mix-up in sales and profits in regard to numbers from GameStop's Q2 earnings last year
The Android Market now offers the $200 'I Am Richer' application.
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET Networks)An application that did nothing beyond showing a person was willing to spend gobs of money for it didn't last long on Apple's App Store, but now we'll begin to see if Google lives up to its more laissez-faire approach to its rival Android Market.
Apple banned Armin Heinrich's "I Am Rich", which cost $1,000 and only showed a red ruby, from its App Store last August. Now the conceptually similar "I Am Richer" has arrived on the Android Market from Mike DG.
Perhaps owners of T-Mobile's G1 phone are more cost-conscious, or the recession has hurt the market for inane software, or Android programmers are willing to offer greater value, though, because the new application offers basically the same feature set for only $200, a fifth the price of the app Apple banned.
"Prove your wealth to others by running this app and showing them the mesmerizing glowing crystal," the software's description says.
Google has some rules for Android Market--no malware is allowed, for example--but generally has a much more liberal attitude than Apple. While each application on the App Store requires Apple's approval, Google plans to let the world at large sort out Android applications through the mechanisms such as the rating system. Good applications will eventually sift their way to the top of the heap the way good YouTube videos do, Google argues.
Update 7:06 p.m. PST: The $200 price is as much as Google permits organizations to charge, the company said. And yes, Google appears perfectly happy to let people buy the application:
"We check applications for compliance with the Market Content Policies and Terms of Service (in order to remove malware, porn, spam, or profanity)," the company said in a statement.
(Via IDG News)
The Wii - catch it if you can.
(Credit: Walmart.com)Discount retailer Wal-Mart on Monday announced that it has started to sell "tens of thousands" of Nintendo's Wii gaming console online. The 2-year-old gadget, consistently sold out and difficult to obtain, emerged as one of Black Friday's big hits amid a bleak economy.
On Friday night, the Wii was sold out on Wal-Mart's Web site as well as the Web sites of electronics retailers Best Buy and Circuit City, Reuters reported. On Monday morning, they were in stock.
Wal-Mart plans to sell the Wii consoles online for a price of $249.24 (Best Buy's listing price is about 50 cents more expensive, so it's not a deep discount) along with a $329 "value bundle" that contains extra controllers and some other add-ons.
The retailer is also offering discounts on Wii accessories and games.
Online retail growth will slow for the first time this holiday season as a result of the weak economy, according to a new report from Forrester Research.
The market research firm estimates that $44 billion will be spent online by consumers during the holiday season; that's up 12 percent from last year, but it's the slowest rate of growth for online retail to date.
It's important to note that the Forrester report refers specifically to e-commerce, not to the hordes of people who show up at Best Buy at 5 a.m. for Black Friday deals. But the slowed growth probably is more reflective of the economy in general, not of an aversion to shopping on the Web--that's because Forrester also found that a weak economy gives incentives to shop online.
For example, 48 percent of those surveyed said they believe that they could find better deals on the Web versus in stores, up from 41 percent last year. And 36 percent said high gas prices would induce them to shop online, up from 22 percent in 2007.
Have you ever been standing on a train platform and thought, "I need a button-down Polo shirt and a pair of herringbone trousers, and I need them now"? Well, word is you can order that getup from your cell phone, right when the urge for Hamptons chic strikes.
(Credit:
Polo Ralph Lauren)
Luxury apparel maker Polo Ralph Lauren is rolling out a mobile commerce site that will be accessible from any phone with a Web browser via mRalphLauren.com.
Currently, mobile shoppers can use their phones to order anything from the company's US Open collections, RL Classics shop, and selection of Ricky Bag handbags.
In coming months, that inventory will expand, so that one day you may even be able to buy your preppy pup a belted cardigan sweater in plush, channel-quilted cashmere while you're sitting in a board meeting.
In making the mobile move, the company is hoping to stay on pace with a trend that's already well-established in Asia, David Lauren, senior vice president of advertising and son of designer and CEO Ralph Lauren, told Reuters.
"The truth is that in other countries, it's becoming a part of their culture," he said. "The trend is coming, and as a fashion company it's very important to identify trends and get ahead of them."
The fashion retailer says it will begin placing special two-dimensional bar codes, called QR (quick response) codes, in print ads, mailings, and store windows along with its sponsorship of the upcoming tennis tournament. The codes, already prevalent in Japan, embed several hundred times more information than a traditional bar code.
Shoppers can download special software to camera phones to scan the codes and be directed to a phone-friendly version of a Ralph Lauren Web site, where they can not only shop, but watch tennis videos and read company content.
Here in the States, Polo Ralph Lauren says it's on the forefront of using of this technology in the fashion field.
Are you one of the millions who visits icanhascheezburger.com every month? The site is well known for its user-generated lolcats, the pictures (usually of cats) with humorous captions thrown on top. Earlier this month, the site unveiled its latest swag, a tried and true 1990s relic: magnetic poetry. The twist is that the words follow popular lolcat memes and have been made to emulate their Web counterparts with the proper white impact font.
Our shipment of magnets arrived earlier this morning and have been privy to some rather humorous concoctions. The best use of these I'm told is to place on top of pictures of your friends, family, and pets on the fridge. Not only do they keep the pictures adhered, but they might also give you a lol when you're going for the milk in the morning.
The magnets retail for eleven bucks, and have free shipping until the end of the month. Obligatory unboxing shots below.
Related:
LOLcats mobile: I can has cell fone?
Soda company to put LOLcats on bottle labels (on Webware)
