Parlor Trick Payments

May 31, 2011


Apologies, dear readers. It’s been a while.

For starters, my boss wasn’t kidding when he said this job would be hellish. Also, I made the mistake of choosing the Durbin Amendment to the Dodd Frank Act as the subject of an upcoming post. Writing it is a long and boring slog; reading it will undoubtedly be similar.

But then I came across something I had to share.

Square, a payments company founded by Jack Dorsey of Twitter fame, develops hardware and software that turn Apple and Android devices into payment processing machines. They make a cute little card reader that plugs into the audio jack of the phone or iPad. Square has gotten funding from Visa and shelf space in Apple stores, and they’re taking off.

The card reader is a great idea; you can now take credit card payments at your garage sale. It’s a perfect example of the ‘solve a problem and be useful to humanity’ school of product design.

However. Square is piloting a new payment experience called Card Case. It’s slick. It’s nifty. It’s beautifully designed. But, unlike the card reader, Card Case falls squarely into the ‘build it and hope they will come’ school of product design. It’s a Parlor Trick product –  clever and entertaining, but not… terribly… useful.

Mashable describes Card Case thusly:

“Square has just introduced a new mobile payment system that allows consumers to pay with their names, no wallet needed, with merchants who use the Square card reader and run the startup’s newly updated Square Register for iPad application.”

In a nutshell, here’s how Card Case works (it’s worth checking out the end-to-end visuals here).

  1. You visit a participating merchant and pay via Square card reader.
  2. You enter your cell number in the merchant’s iPad.
  3. You get a text message with a link to Square’s account setup pages.
  4. You create an account. Square sets up a tab (as in, “Put it on my tab”) with the merchant, using the credit card you used for the initial transaction.
  5. You download the Square Card Case application for iPhone or Android and create a PIN.
  6. You end up with a card for each merchant where you have a tab.
    Square Card Case

    UI designers, eat your hearts out.

    The UI is undeniably gorgeous. Stylish. Retro. Clever. I’m almost tempted to run out and get an iPhone just to be able to use UIs that look like this (RIM, are you paying attention?)

  7. When you’re checking out at a participating merchant where you have a ‘tab’, you click Ready to Pay on your phone and your name appears on the merchant’s Square Register application. The merchant selects your name to charge the transaction to your tab. It’s not completely clear from the Mashable article, but I don’t think you’re running up a tab with the merchant. It sounds like this is just a fancy way of executing a credit card transaction.
  8. An electronic version of the receipt is attached to the merchant’s card in your Card Case.

There’s also a local component – Card Case can show you participating merchants nearby, and even the merchants’ menus or product listings. The only thing missing is a social angle; share to Facebook is undoubtedly coming soon.

Adorable. But what’s the point of this? How is it faster or easier than swiping a credit card? Or more flexible than carrying a couple of credit cards and switching off as needed?

Here’s what Jack Dorsey, CEO of Square, has to say about it (quote from Mashable):

“Cash registers and credit card terminals are relics of an expensive, complicated and impersonal commercial transaction system… With Register and Card Case, we’re transforming everyday transactions between buyers and sellers into something special.”

I haven’t found credit cards terribly complicated, myself.

Net life change: You can leave your credit card at home, provided you’re (a) going to a merchant where you have a ‘tab’ and (b) you want to pay from the same credit card you used to create the tab.

When I compare this to the net life change for Kenya’s killer payment app, I’m underwhelmed, but then, I’m a Gen X stick-in-the-mud.

Help me out: Hipsters, Millenials, and Apple fanpersons, this is your chance to call me an old fogey. Is Card Case the next iPhone, a product so cool that it doesn’t have to fill a need? Or are the good folks at Square simply trying to get press? What do you think?

Leave a Comment » | Mobile Payments, Payments | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Digital Acolyte

Payments+Social+Huck Finn+Robots

March 8, 2011

 
The raison d’etre of Digital Acolyte is to explore the intersection of payments, social media, and mobile technology. We’ve been a bit heavy on the mobile lately, so here’s an example of how payments are being creatively leveraged in the social space. (That last phrase is there to make me sound like a marketing guru.)

Let’s say you have an incredibly brilliant idea: You want to publish a version of Huckleberry Finn that replaces all instances of the n-epithet with the word ‘robot’. You are either making a very clever statement about literature, censorship, and the elimination of historical context, or it’s late and you’re drunk.

Huck Finn and Robot

You’re a struggling young something-or-other, so you ask your parents to fund your project. They mail you an application to law school. You call your Uncle Joe. He threatens to send the police with a Breathalyzer. What to do?

Enter Kickstarter, which bills itself “the largest funding platform for creative projects in the world.”

Here’s how it works:

You post a description of your project and your fundraising goal on kickstarter.com, along with the goodies – t-shirts, customized rap lyrics, etc. – that you’re offering to investors. People who buy into your robotic vision pledge online. If you manage to raise the full amount in pledges, the donors’ credit cards are billed. Otherwise, they aren’t. (Mashable recently posted some case studies.)

If you can convince enough people that your idea is worthwhile, you get the amount of money you need and full creative control of your project. And if you don’t raise the full amount, well, either your idea is a loser or you’re not presenting it right.

This idea is brilliant in its simplicity – bringing the crowdfunded Groupon business model to the non-profit world. Entrepreneurs get funding with no strings attached. Funders know that their donations are likely to do some good, since projects are only funded if the full amount needed is raised. And online payments are used not just in the pursuit of filthy lucre, but to advance the cause of art. (If you call The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Robotic Edition, art.)

Not long ago I was asked on a job interview which companies I admire for innovation. I stumbled and bumbled and finally answered Google. Hopefully I won’t be interviewing any time soon, but if I do, my new answer is Kickstarter.

Help me out: What projects would you crowdfund if you weren’t busy with your day job? And do you know of other companies bringing great payments ideas to the non-profit world?

Leave a Comment » | Payments, Social Media | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Digital Acolyte

Getting Started with Social Media: Sips from the Fire Hose

January 10, 2011

ON THE FIRST DAY, out of a job and seeking enlightenment about social media and marketing, I Googled “social media marketing.” (Clever, eh?) And up popped The Social Media Marketing Blog.

[Note to self: Which is a better name for a blog about social media marketing: “The Social Media Marketing Blog” – clear, descriptive, searchable – or the vague and inscrutable “Digital Acolyte?” Right. But I already paid for the domain name, so Digital Acolyte stays.]

In a case of beginner’s luck, TSMMB had just posted this Blog Tree showing important blogs on social media, marketing, and related topics.

The Blog Tree

First thought: A roadmap!

Second thought: This is an INSANE amount of content. And it’s ALL CHANGING ALL THE TIME.

The first blog I checked out was Mashable, because I liked the name. Then ReadWriteWeb. And, since I’m a lifelong voracious reader, this article on changing online reading habits caught my eye. What I learned from the article was that cool, savvy media types do not go to blogs. They bring the blogs to them through Google Reader. The author of the post is so savvy that he was already past Google Reader, which I’d never heard of, and moving on to Instapaper.

Intimidating. But still – reading is my thing. Reading I can do.

So I set up a Google Reader page and subscribed to some of the root blogs in the Blog Tree, including Mashable, ReadWriteWeb, Social Media Examiner, and TechCrunch. I skipped others because they weren’t what I was looking for or overlapped with the ones I already had. Then I added a few payments blogs and the B2B Marketing Blog and called it a day.

A few days later, the unread item counts in my Google Reader page looked like this:

Google Reader Overload

Gulp. Skimming is clearly a key survival skill in this Brave New World.

Lessons learned:

  • There’s a wealth of information out there.
  • If you’re just getting started and can only follow one blog, try Mashable.
  • For 50% of posts, the title says it all. (Try scrolling through Google Reader’s list view.) For another 40% of posts, the first paragraph says it all. (Try GR’s expanded view.)
  • You can star the last 10% in Google Reader or save to Instapaper for reading (or ignoring) at your leisure.

Help me out: How do you stay current without getting overwhelmed by the mass of information?

4 Comments | Getting Started, Social Media | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Digital Acolyte

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