Posts tagged Plans
SEO Positive Plans to Launch New Paid Search Site – PR Web (press release)
Jan 23rd
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SEO Positive Plans to Launch New Paid Search Site
PR Web (press release) SEO Positive unveils plans to design a brand new website that will focus solely on advertising its Pay Per Click services. SEO Positive predicts that 2012 will be an interesting year for PPC. After launching a brand new corporate website in early … |
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Microsoft Keeps Quiet About Plans For Skype, Windows Integration
Jan 16th
Microsoft is keeping mum about plans to integrate Skype into its Windows Phone.
There has been mounting speculation that Skype would soon be a feature on Windows Phone since Microsoft announced plans to acquire Skype last year. The company had initially promised the introduction of Skype-equipped Windows phones by the end of last year, and last week the Guardian reported that Microsoft Rick Osterloh said at the Consumer Electrionics Show in Las Vegas that the feature will be available “soon.”
But on Monday, a Microsoft spokesman refused to pin down the specifics of the product launch.
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“We see incredible potential to include Skype capabilities into Windows Phone, but we have nothing specific to announce at this time,” the spokesperson said in an email.
Meanwhile, Skype spokesperson Chaim Hass said the Guardian report was nothing new.
“This is nothing different than what was announced by MSFT last October,” Hass said. “At this time, we have no specific timing to share.”
Despite acquiring Skype from eBay for $8.5 billion last year, Microsoft’s Windows Phone is the only major mobile operating system that does not have a fully-functional Skype client. While Microsoft could introduce a version of Skype for Windows Phone as early as next month, a extensive roll out is not expected until later this year when Microsoft updates the entire operating system.
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LevelUp Nabs First National Merchant, Plans to Go After Big Brands in 2012
Dec 28th
Mobile payments solution LevelUp is ringing in the new year with some big news in its attempt to grow into a leading mobile payments provider. The SCVNGR-owned platform has bagged its first big brand to bring its payments solution across the United States. LevelUp is teaming with Villa Pizza, a national pizza chain with more than 400 locations, to use smartphones, deals and QR codes to entice users to pay with their mobile devices.
The partnership is the first big brand that LevelUp has reached an agreement with. The announcement coincides with the launch of a Villa Pizza location in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Users will get a $10 LevelUp voucher to Villa Pizza at the Manhattan location all day, essentially giving people free pizza while celebrating 2012. The partnership is also a sign of things to come for LevelUp.
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Three Prongs To LevelUp Strategy In 2012
SCVNGR and LevelUp founder Seth Priebatsch told us in a recent conversation that the payments solution has a three-pronged attack ready for 2012. The company has been moderately successful in the first two items below while the third will be a major focus in the new year:
- Win over consumers
- Build groundswell with local businesses
- Sign more partnerships with large brands and enterprises
Let’s break down how LevelUp plans to achieve these three goals.
Win over consumers
Consumers need to be convinced of two things to start using LevelUp as a payments solution: that mobile payments are worth it and that LevelUp deals are worth signing up for the service. Mobile payments will be one of the major stories of 2012 as more technology companies, payment platforms and brands get in on the act. That means step one will be fairly easy to achieve as consumers start looking to their phones as opposed to their wallets more often. The second aspect is trickier as the entire “deals” space has seen a backlash in the latter half of 2012. LevelUp is different than Groupon or LivingSocial though as users do not need to pay anything to get the deals, simply look for participating retailers on their phones. Deals and the very concept of “leveling up” to greater deals is incentive to win over consumers, as long as the payments solution is easy.
Build Groundswell With Local Businesses
We have written about LevelUp and groundswell before. The primary take away for LevelUp’s roadmap is very simple: make it extremely easy to implement and use. LevelUp gives merchants Android phones with QR code scanners and training to use the backend of the payments system. In theory, merchants should just be able to the consumer and scan the code on their smartphone, make a couple clicks and the transaction is done. The bigger trick is convincing the merchant that the deals aspect – giving consumers a free amount of dollars – is of benefit. It comes down to the same deals logic that Groupon and LivingSocial have been dealing with in partnerships with local businesses: will consumers come back after the deal runs out?
Sign More Brands
This is where there is going to be a race in the mobile payments space in 2012. The more that startups like LevelUp and Dwolla can sign bigger, national brands, the more people will look to the services as mainstream. LevelUp is approaching the bigger brands from the bottom after building a local base. Platforms like the Google Wallet have been taking the opposite approach and going from the top down, trying to get the big brands first and hope that the local businesses fall in line. This is not a technology issue. LevelUp is based in Boston and has made inroads with its local sales force in the city and also in New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco. The company is bringing in 15 new employees to join various aspects of the company in the first week of January. Some of those new employees will act as regional sales directors in different parts of the country while others will join the operations crew and others will focus on reeling in the big brands.
What it comes down to is that while the local businesses keep money flowing in, the big brands are what will give mobile payments consumer mindshare. Dwolla and LevelUp are working up from the bottom, Google, MasterCard, Visa and the bigger ecosystem are working from the top down. It brings a whole new definition to “race to the middle.” Whatever side reaches the most brands first will dominate the late adopters, the lucrative middle.
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AT&T Plans Fall Apart, Throws In the Towel on T-Mobile Deal
Dec 19th
The nightmare is over. Or, hopes and dreams have been crushed. Really, it depends on what side of the argument you fell on but, as of now, it is moot: AT&T and T-Mobile have dropped their $39 billion merger bid and will remain two separate, unaffiliated companies.
The competition will rejoice. Sprint, in particular, comes off as a big winner and CEO Dan Hesse will be vindicated for his crusade against the merger all year. Verizon, which took a “don’t look at us, we are just watching the circus” approach, probably does not benefit from its failure. AT&T had set aside $4 billion in breakup fees that it now needs to pay Deutsche Telecom, the owners of T-Mobile. So, the biggest loser here is AT&T. The company would also like consumers to believe they are the losers as well.
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According to AT&T’s corporate site, here are the pertinent bits of the announcement:
The actions by the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice to block this transaction do not change the realities of the U.S. wireless industry. It is one of the most fiercely competitive industries in the world, with a mounting need for more spectrum that has not diminished and must be addressed immediately. The AT&T and T-Mobile USA combination would have offered an interim solution to this spectrum shortage. In the absence of such steps, customers will be harmed and needed investment will be stifled.
“To meet the needs of our customers, we will continue to invest,” [CEO Randall] Stephenson said. “However, adding capacity to meet these needs will require policymakers to do two things. First, in the near term, they should allow the free markets to work so that additional spectrum is available to meet the immediate needs of the U.S. wireless industry, including expeditiously approving our acquisition of unused Qualcomm spectrum currently pending before the FCC. Second, policymakers should enact legislation to meet our nation’s longer-term spectrum needs.
“The mobile Internet is a dynamic industry that can be a critical driver in restoring American economic growth and job creation, but only if companies are allowed to react quickly to customer needs and market forces,” Stephenson said.
The Federal Communications Commission took its first crack at the deal in May, about a month and a half after the merger was announced. That announcement fell on the day before CTIA’s main wireless conference of the year in Orlando. There was an awkward panel at CTIA where the CEO’s of Sprint (Hesse), AT&T (Ralph de La Vega) and Verizon (Dan Mead) as the three of the most influential men in wireless were peppered with questions from Mad Money’s Jim Cramer.
Later in the year, the Department of Justice got in on the act against the merger and the writing was on the wall that the merger would likely not go through. The longer the process dragged on, the more money AT&T stood to lose both on infrastructure development and legal fees. We noted in September that it would be easy for a three carrier environment dominated by Verizon and AT&T to collude on price-fixing without actually have to communicate with each other.
AT&T was betting the house on the notion that it could increase the pace of innovation, provide broadband service to 99.9% of Americans, create jobs and make the U.S. more competitive in the global wireless market. Sprint fought back, saying that none of this would be true and that Sprint would get squeezed out of the market by the dominant duo on top of the food chain.
Now it is finally over and the U.S. will remain a market with four large cellular carriers. AT&T and T-Mobile customers: how do you feel about this, since you were probably the most likely to benefit from the merger? Sprint fans, is this a win? Or is all of this billion-dollar merger just corporate shenanigans that you could care less about. Let us know in the comments.
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SEO Company Oracle Digital Announce Plans To Open In Brisbane Early 2012 – San Francisco Chronicle (press release)
Dec 14th
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SEO Company Oracle Digital Announce Plans To Open In Brisbane Early 2012
San Francisco Chronicle (press release) One of Australia's leading SEO companies, Oracle Digital, announces their plan to begin serving Brisbane customers in late January. Having great success over the last two years in Perth, Oracle Digital plans to open their services to an SEO Brisbane … |
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SEO Company Oracle Digital Announce Plans To Open In Brisbane Early 2012 – DigitalJournal.com (press release)
Dec 14th
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SEO Company Oracle Digital Announce Plans To Open In Brisbane Early 2012
DigitalJournal.com (press release) Having great success over the last two years in Perth, Oracle Digital plans to open their services to an SEO Brisbane market later next month. This move comes months ahead of schedule, as their Head of Operations, Clint Maher, says. … |
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25% Discount on SEO Services Plans by #1 SEO India Company SEO Corporation – SBWire (press release)
Dec 12th
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25% Discount on SEO Services Plans by #1 SEO India Company SEO Corporation
SBWire (press release) World Class SEO Services at dirt cheap prices starting at just $250 are now available at even lower price of $188 per month. Wow!! Grab this festive offer and save hundreds of dollars in next year. New Delhi, India — (SBWIRE) — 12/12/2011 — SEO … |
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SEO Specialists Oracle Digital Announce Plans to Open in Sydney – San Francisco Chronicle (press release)
Dec 7th
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SEO Specialists Oracle Digital Announce Plans to Open in Sydney
San Francisco Chronicle (press release) Due to overwhelming demand from Sydney SME's, Perth's leading SEO company will be extending their operations to the NSW state capital. SEO Specialists Oracle Digital announce plans to open SEO Sydney. This is in response to the overwhelming demand from … |
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