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Gone are the days of the bulky billfold, various plastic credit cards and that irritating 16-digit card number.

With last week’s debut of PayPal’s Mobile Express Checkout, the tech blogosphere has erupted with online chatter surrounding the world of electronic commerce. Let’s face it- There are countless reasons for optimism. The landscape is already highly competitive, with applications ranging from Square to Boku, and the fast-paced lifestyle of U.S. consumers would fully support the demand for this kind of innovative technology. Even eBay CEO, John Donahue, has boldly stepped forward to proclaim mobile as the “safest form of payment,” making mainstream adoption that much closer to reality.

What’s interesting about PayPal’s newest initiative in mobile commerce comes with their joint announcement of PayPal Local, an iPhone application that introduces location-based features allowing users to find nearby businesses that accept PayPal. Imagine checking in to your favorite restaurant and discovering PayPal as an accepted form of payment! This mobile pairing has the potential to streamline the process of asking for the bill, waiting (sometimes, praying) for transaction completion and returning the receipt to the server.

It’s official. Mobile commerce has evolved from the stage of conceptualization. We now understand how real, tangible expressions within this space will quickly lead to mainstream adoption.

At Fleishman, we think QR codes are pretty cool. We worked closely with an automotive client to experiment with them during SXSW 2010 by positioning QR codes on different parts of a vehicle we were previewing.

Conference-goers interested in learning more about a specific feature could scan those codes, reading and saving the information to their smartphones.

Shopping one day at the Whole Foods Flagship store in Austin, TX, I was amazed to see a QR code displayed in the egg department. This is the only example I’ve seen of a QR code in a grocery store.

Vital Farms QR Code

Vital Farms, a local organic egg farm, shared a video showing the farm as well as the owners talking about their philosophy. The video served as an excellent marketing vehicle, to differentiate these eggs from the rest.

I learned about how lovingly they care for their chickens, and what I saw on the video directly led me to put the carton in my basket.

I also think that the Whole Foods marketing department did a great job in explaining, step-by-step and right next to the code itself, how the technology works.

Now that we’ve established QR codes are super cool and cutting edge, I want to make sure y’all know what to do with a QR code if you see one around.

Smartphone owners need to download a QR code application before scanning the code with their camera. Some examples of QR code apps include Code Scanner, iCandy, Neoreader, and Optiscan.

Once you have a QR code reader on the phone, you just scan the QR code and check out the information that is encoded. This can be text, photo, video, URL, or other data.

What experiences have you had — as a marketer or consumer — with QR codes?

Location-based services (LBS), or geolocation applications, or “the creepy tech that lets everyone know where you are” is so new that there’s still little fighting over acronyms or adjectives to describe the category.

In reality, a fraction of people who have technologies that enable LBS even know they have it, and an even smaller fraction of those actually use it, and an even smaller fraction of that set use it actively.  So, for the three of you who are actively using these technologies (and I know where you are), you don’t have to read any further.  You get it.  You understand, or like the rest of us trying to understand, the implications that LBS will have on the social dynamic. With this post, I’ll try to put a stake in the ground and mark where we are in the adoption, proliferation and understanding of LBS and its potential.  Because, it’s early.  Really early.  But, it’s one that will continue to grow and change many of the tenants of social interaction and online/offline integration.

Location: A Brief History & Technology
Here’s my best attempt at a brief history of location and its technology that you’ll have to fact-check me on …. Location became relevant approximately 10 billion years ago when the earth was created and there became a locale to attach location.  Fast forward about 9.999 billion years (give or take a 9) and people are roaming the earth in search other people and places.  Discovering new continents, finding lost cities, creating beer trips in college towns.  The point is that location has always been relevant – whether you’re searching for the new world, or the closest World Market, location is important.  And, the technologies used to map and define location have become and continue to become more accurate and integrated into the other technologies we use every day.  Just as the use of these technologies will continue to evolve, so will the applications that sit on top of it.  Until recently, the technologies that power location weren’t refined, and the networks that they ran over weren’t dialed in enough to make the experience a good one.  So, to understand the proliferation of LBS, and anything that’s built on technology, you have to understand where we are in the evolution of the underlying technology.  While there are still pieces to fall into place (WiFi, other broadband technologies, etc.), the technology foundation LBS rides across and gives the consumer a good experience is now in place, and improving – which will facilitate broader adoption.

Availability Doesn’t Mean Adoption
With a strong technology foundation and a good user experience, LBS is ready to take off.  Wrong.  Just because the technologies are available, doesn’t mean people will begin to use them.  With this category, I’d say there’s almost an inverse correlation between availability and adoption.  LBS hit at the core of many of the fears people have about the Internet, generally, and cell phones specifically.  There will exist for a while a creep factor when it comes to letting people know where you are at any given time.  The fact that our phones can share that information is cause for concern for many.  But, the one thing that LBS has going for it is the great equalizer, Facebook.  Or, as I call it “the gateway drug to social media.”  With the addition of Facebook Places, that platform alone will accelerate the adoption of location-based features.  The more your friends share their location with you, the more you’re aware of and likely to share your location with them.  Pretty soon (in about 18 – 24 mos) we’ll see not only a proliferation of brands using even more location-based applications, but more consumers sharing their location.  And, it’s all going according to plan.  Technology — Availability — Propagation Across Social Set — Adoption

Location: It’s the Journey, Not the Destination
Or at least, location is only part of it.  It’s what location enables, and to paraphrase Gowalla’s Josh Williams, “It’s what happens AFTER people check in that’s going to be interesting.”  As we’ve seen with Twitter and now Facebook, location is quickly becoming a commodity.  For all the talk of “checking in,” it’s equal parts location and experience.  This is where the real value of location becomes apparent.  Whether checking in is a trigger for your friends to find you, or it’s an opportunity for the restaurant to enhance your experience, what happens because you’ve identified your location is the future of these technologies and where marketers have an opportunity.

Enter: Marketer – Stage Right
I’ve often said that location is the third dimension of social media, and that it’s one of the few platforms that get better when marketers are involved.  When done right, brands and marketers can bring greater relevance to not only LBS, but also to the locations themselves.  Part of the draw of these platforms is the element of surprise that’s possible through them.  Getting a benefit for being a loyal customer just got a lot more real.  At least, the opportunity for it to become more real and personal just got easier.  The challenge for marketers is to use these platforms in a way that’s not intrusive and to bring a real value to them.  I have a hard time when I see some brands trying to offer the same benefit they push through the Sunday circular in their location-based programs.  Ten percent off a car wash after your third check in doesn’t hit the mark for me.  Initially people may be intrigued by the function of checking in and seeing something, anything, from the business, but as we’ve see with other social channels, expectations advance faster than marketers can adapt to those expectations.  It’s best to try to stay ahead of that dilemma by starting from a place of value.  And follow the hallmarks of successful location-based programs – compelling, convenient, easy.

Exit: Marketer – Stage Left
As important as it is to be part of the location-based discussion about your location, it’s equally important to understand that these channels are best directed by the consumers who use them, not the brand.  As with any new technology that gets a brand closer to its consumers, there’s a delicate balance between helpful and relevant and forced and annoying.  The non-benefit I mentioned earlier is one example.  If you’re not able to offer something of value through your location-based program, look for other ways to be present.  Actively manage your location, engage with the people who frequent the location (engage, not harass with offers), find ways to show that you’re in tune with, value and understand these new channels.  In addition, find ways to incorporate other platforms and emerging technologies together to create a unique experience.  But, above all, be a human and bring value to the relationship.  If you’re not delivering value, wait until you can, but don’t wait too long.

Where we Are; Where We’re Going
We’ve established the relevance of location and that it’s inherent to our lives as human beings.  We’ve set the expectation that there’s a technology foundation from which to build, and building we are. We’ve established that, while location is important, it’s only part of the puzzle.  And, as location becomes a commodity, it’s the experience that’s enabled through location that matters.  We’ve also unraveled the adoption mystery and how that plays into our long-term strategy.  And, finally, we have a better understanding of the role of the brand in these channels and how to add value.  So, what’s next.  Since I’ve taken far too much room to lay this all out, I’ll save that for the next post, where I’ll draw insight from the Location-based Marketing Summit and the discussions I’ll have at that event.  I’ll meet with some of the platform providers themselves as well as some of the brands and marketers who are exploring and using these new tools.  I’ll package all of that up and offer a view of where the group thinks LBS is going.  I’ll finish with this.

I’m speaking at the Location-based Marketing Summit about a category of technologies that haven’t even hatched yet and with the experience of about a year actually developing these types of programs.  But, I view LBS like I did Twitter and similar platforms early in their development and adoption.  And, I encourage clients in the same way – experiment now to find the relevance for you as a consumer and for your brand’s consumers.  Because these tools are so new, as a brand, there’s no reason why you should have already explored the options that LBS holds for you and the connections they’ll enable with your consumers.  You have time to justify it and make good decisions based on how consumers engage with your brand.  But, as an individual, there’s no reason why you can’t create a trip on Gowalla, download SVNGR and complete some tasks or begin to attach location to your Tweets to understand how the technologies work, what’s possible and what’s worth exploring more.  Discover, learn and activate.  Now is the time.

Something Steve Jobs chose to highlight (besides Winnie the Pooh) during his iPhone 4 announcement was the ability to use iMovie on the iPhone. For someone with a computer that is more like WALL-E than EVE,  this was exciting news. After buying it in the iTunes store for $4.99, I decided to try it out while babysitting for some friends. I took some pictures and video while the kids were up, and when they went to bed I was able to edit the whole video on my iPhone and show their parents by the time they got home.

Here are the highlights…

Cool features:

·        Editing on the go

·        Themes with custom transitions and music that make editing easier

·        Upload directly to YouTube

·        Choose one of the theme songs, or add a song from your iTunes library

Few small issues:

·        If you upload to YouTube directly, there is a loss in quality—better to upload from your computer

·        Only one song can be used, and can’t be looped

·        There is only so much room on your phone for HD video (should have bought the 32GB!)

·        Only five themes are available

The look on the faces of my friends when they came home made it all worth it. Since then, I’ve made videos of friends’ weddings and of an interview of my grandpa telling his life story (his mom used to keep a window unlocked for him when he was out partying with friends).

Without further ado, my adventures with Max and Andy (before you ask, yes, I was too busy filming the kids to wipe their noses):

With the release of “Apple of my Eye”, the first short film shot and edited using the iPhone 4, I started to envision the future of mobile journalism and how iMovie could potentially transform the way we consume news media. Michael Korbel’s short film showcases the iPhone 4’s capability to capture raw emotion and visualize complex storylines while using a minimal amount of equipment. Be honest- In the right setting, “Apple of my Eye” might make you tear up, just a little.

So what does this mean for future iReport contributors? Well, quite a bit. Recording HD video at 720 p resolution/30 frames per second could produce award-winning documentaries capable of immediate web submission. Can you imagine the effect this would have had on the Iranian Twitter Revolution? Unedited video uploads went viral overnight, drawing international coverage and raising awareness of the turmoil surrounding the distressed country.

In the United States, we’ve seen growing popularity in Facebook and YouTube video uploads reporting police brutality. This has caused government officials to question altercations caught on tape, making the video camera one of the “most effective weapon(s) that ordinary people have to protect against and to expose police abuse.”

Recently, YouTube launched CitizenTube, a feed that tracks breaking news video uploads with a “focus on strong visuals and non-traditional sources.” Allvoices, a newly launched citizen journalism platform, has seen record growth internationally, with 6.5 million unique visitors in the month of May. Though iPhone-to-web direct uploads are not yet available, these signs show that journalism is shifting focus toward user-generated content, where importance lies in the citizen’s point of view.

Living in Texas and trying to stay mobile without using a car can be tough. While I have a car, this summer I chose to try commuting to work by bus instead of driving. I initially downloaded the Ride Austin iPhone app as a mobile method to help me conquer public transportation in Austin. My $2.99 investment was worth every penny — I literally would be lost without it.

The app helps you find the closest bus or train stop to your location, shows you the schedule for routes that go by that location, and lets you look at route maps.

Chicago, Portland, and Seattle, among others, offer apps with real-time bus schedules where each bus is tracked with GPS systems so you know whether your bus is early, late, or right on time. Buster, the Chicago Bus Tracker costs $1.99, while Portland and Seattle’s apps are free.

Acrossair, an app development company, put out augmented reality apps last year for several large cities in which users can find the nearest transit station via their iPhones’ video function. The following is the developer’s description of the New York Nearest Subway app:

“When you load the app, holding it flat, all 33 lines of the New York Subway are displayed in colored arrows. By tilting the phone upwards, you will see the nearest stations: what direction they are in relation to your location, how many miles away they are and what lines they are on. If you continue to tilt the phone upwards, you will see stations further away, as stacked icons.”

In addition to NYC, the $1.99 Acrossair app is available for cities including London, San Francisco, Madrid, Paris and Tokyo. Some cities also have free versions supported by Apple iAds.

See below for an example of the New York app’s interface or watch a short video on the Acrossair’s website.

The Google Maps app that comes pre-loaded on every iPhone has a pretty nifty public transportation feature as well. It allows you to pick your current location, addresses from your contacts’ information, or a custom insert and then choose directions to there or from there.  You can also choose to depart ‘now’ or select a time in the future, and then are presented with the three routes numbers closest to your departure time, their expected

arrival time, and the total fare for your journey.  Not bad for an app that came with the phone! Hindsight is 20/20, and I wish I’d found out about the capabilities of this app before purchasing Ride Austin.

Here is a screenshot showing the next bus I can take from my office to my apartment.

Going careless can be initially daunting but public transportation apps really helped ease the transition for me.

What would Christopher Latham Sholes say about this? Indian mobile phone maker–Lava International Ltd–has created two phones sans QWERTY since  “a large segment of mobile users who are not familiar or comfortable with QWERTY or Multi-tap keypads.”

They are talking about folks who have grown up without a computer and rely on their mobile devices for everything. While I find this hard to believe that people would choose ALPHA over QWERTY, it does bring up an interesting point. Does QWERTY still have relevance in our abbreviated lexicon?

Mr. Sholes orgininally developed QWERTY to increase productivity (but not too much) for those on a typewriter. But I wonder if that productivity (or an even stream of productivity) can still be accomplished when folks type things like, “OMG,” “Thx,” and “FML.”

Regardless–this is an interesting move that could (but probably won’t) change how consumers use their mobile keypad.

Lately, I’ve become very interested in the push to put mobile devices in the hands of the developing world. Not because I think some kid in a remote village of a third-world country needs to play with Twitter’s new “Places” feature (although they just may want to); it’s because of the promise that lies in what the spread of information and technology could do for bridging the quality-of-life gap.

In the next two weeks, a group from UC Davis will compete for the Imagine Cup, a global contest by Microsoft that awards students who create innovative technologies that can help the world. The team’s invention is a software for cell phones that identifies vascular diseases in children by taking a picture of their eye and sending the information to a server for diagnostic testing. The results are then texted back to the phone.

Similar to this, a new device created by MIT’s Media Lab will allow for a simple, on-the-spot, eye exam for refractive errors in vision by way of a cell phone’s camera.

I think this is where mobile needs to develop. Both these technologies create opportunities for low-cost health care to go out into rural locations where other modern medical options aren’t available.

While it’s fun to push the limits with our social networks and digital media, imagine the possibilities from moving mobile into a more practical space where it can address the world’s largest problems – one application at a time.

(Video courtesy of Sparxoo)