Between Brackets

According to Mobile Marketing magazine VISA Europe is pilot testing an alert system which does send you an SMS alert each time a payment is made with your credit card. The system has been piloted in the US last year already.

Competitor Mastercard had been experimenting with sending texts when a suspect transactions occur, but have apparently not yet made the switch yet to send an SMS with any purchase like Visa is now testing.

This seems to be a really good service and a good use of the mobile phone, since credit card transactions still have this insecure feel for many people and this way you can respond directly when something suspect happens. Let’s hope they roll-out the system quickly in the whole of Europe.

No more tying

In September the ban for tying will be lifted in Belgium. This will result in an incredible price drops in many industries and especially in the telecom market. Where we will start seeing interesting offers as of then.
At least that’s what many hope for. Some think the iPhone will become less expensive.
Personally, I’m not sure the tying ban was the primary reason for slow adoption of new technologies. It may be one piece of the puzzle, but lack of competition and lack of big international players certainly are other pieces.

Take the G1 phone

If T-Mobile had been active in this country, we wouldn’t have had to wait until now to have a Google phone (at least officially).

Take the Kindle

And if Amazon decides to launch the Kindle on the European market, then we’ll again have to wait longer than other countries, since they’ll probably start the roll-out with a pan-European operator (none of which are active on the Belgian market -we’ll maybe Mobistar).

Open up

I hope the Belgian market will op up thanks to the lifted ban. But as I said, I’m afraid that’s only one piece of the puzzle.

After Blyk changed their strategy to hook up with a mobile operator (see earlier post), it has been announced here and there the advertisement MVNO model has failed.

After the change of strategy it has been unclear what would happen to last year’s intentions to start operations in other countries such as the Netherlands and Belgium. In the Netherlands an announcement has been made recently, one might wonder if Belgium will follow suit. If so, there’s only 3 parties to choose from, one of which (Mobistar) is indirectly linked to Orange, the UK operator that might take over UK Blyk MVNO operations.

Toyota targets iPhone owners with a mobile Prius promotion (via Mobile Marketer)

They use a mobile website to offer product features, price info, etc. and the obvious dealer locator. It is understandable that they target mobile users, and especially iPhone owners as these people are typically doing more of their regular information look up with their phone. What is a bit weird though, is that they use a mobile website since a mobile website provides an experience that is quite different from the typical apps iPhone users expect. Perhaps it has something to do with timing, and Toyota feels the same way, as they announce the arrival of a real app in the near future.

What is interesting though is that they are really focusing on product information, to assist the customer with his/her buying process. Once they switch over to an app, they offer the consumer a buying assistant always on hand. However, now that they have established this relationship, and the consumer decides to buy a Toyota Prius, this particular app loses most of its value.

It would therefore be a good idea if Toyota built an after-sales app as well and pro-actively assisted the the consumer replacing the one app with the other. This app could offer maintenance advice, options that can be added to the car later on,info about Prius owner clubs or events, and any other information relevant to a Prius owner. They could even offer some mileage tracking features which could be fed back as a great source of actual usage data. By offering 2 apps instead of one, each app has its specific focus, and they can continue the relationship they built with the consumer, learn more about his/her needs and improve the product experience significantly.

I’ve had my kindle for about 3 weeks now and I’m suuuper happy!

Some draw-backs:

• The wireless download functionality doesn’t work since I live in Europe, but otherwise it is truly a remarkably easy, pleasant and fast way to read.
• You can’t share a book as you would share a print version. And that’s a shame: I discovered many authors and stories thanks to friends that lend me one of their books from a specific author or about a specific topic; after which I often bought the book myself or the new releases.
• I’m not sure how to get my notes in a decent format off the reader or my account (Excel would be great, CSV would be even greater ).

There’s a couple of posts on the web that cover some issue with the Kindle. And many are viable.

Still the reading experience so far is fantastic (certainly better than on a laptop or iPhone/iPod). And if they iron out the bad parts (DRM, not shareable, world-wide wireless downloads) the future is certainly bright for Kindles

I’m hoping the Kindle comes to Europe soon!