Tag: rovio

eBay acquires mobile commerce firm Braintree

| October 1, 2013

eBay continues to make aggressive moves in the mobile commerce field

Retail giant already boasts of a formidable presence in the mobile sector, but that does not mean that the company has grown complacent. Through its PayPal subsidiary, eBay has been working to engage consumers throughout the world on the field of mobile commerce. With mobile devices becoming more common, people around the world are beginning to engage in new forms of commerce. Mobile commerce has become one of the most lucrative fields in the mobile space and has attracted the interest of retail and technology companies of all kinds.

Braintree expects to process $12 billion in payments this year

This week, eBay announced its acquisition of Braintree, a mobile commerce specialist, for $800 million. The company plans to combine Braintree with the mobile payments division of PayPal in order to bolster its growing mobile commerce infrastructure. Braintree estimates that it will process more than $12 billion in mobile payments this year and it lists Rovio, OpenTable, TaskRabbit, and Heroku among its clients.

Venmo application now available to eBay

Through the acquisition, eBay has gained access to Braintree’s Venmo application, which facilitates mobile payments from smartphones and tablets. The application is yet another platform through which eBay and PayPal can engage mobile consumers. PayPal is a strong advocate of mobile commerce platforms that are not wholly reliant on NFC technology. The company has some security concerns when it comes to NFC and is also critical of the exclusive nature of the technology. The low availability of NFC-enabled mobile devices makes it difficult for many consumers to participate in mobile commerce in any meaningful way.

Braintree expected to continue current operations alongside PayPal

Braintree is expected to continue many of its current operations. Per the acquisition, the company will exist as a separate entity within PayPal and will provide services that will fall under the Braintree name. The company is also engaged in a partnership with Facebook concerning streamlining mobile commerce through the Auto Fill with Facebook initiative.

Mobile games see turbulence in revenue generation

| June 12, 2013

Developers looking to find ways to get people engaged in mobile games

Mobile games have become one of the most potentially lucrative sectors of the game industry, largely due to the sheer number of consumers that have mobile devices. While these games have proven quite popular with consumers, they are not a guaranteed gold mine. In order for mobile games to generate any significant amount of revenue, they must tackle a very difficult challenge involving consumer engagement. Consumers have a very short attention span when it comes to mobile applications and will move on to a new application very quickly. This has lead many developers to seek out new ways to ensure that their mobile games remain engaging.

Supply outweighs demand

The number of mobile games has increased dramatically since 2007. This means that there is no shortage of options when consumers are looking for new games to play. Because there is no shortage, consumers can easily go from game to game without having to spend any significant amount of time on a single application. While this may be good for consumers, this is somewhat problematic for developers, as low engagement times mean less revenue produced by a particular game.

Mobile Games - revenue and consumersConsumer engagement proves to be a tricky issue

Finding ways to keep consumers engaged has not been an easy task. Thus far, the mobile games that have been able to accomplish this task have been those with strong social elements, such as Draw Something and Words With Friends. Some developers have taken to developing highly addicting games with attractive features, following the example of Angry Birds. No developer has yet found an effective way to ensure that a mobile game produces a high level of revenue, however.

Finding ways to generate revenue continues to be a strong focus for the game industry

Angry Birds developer Rovio notes that 45% of its revenue comes from merchandise and mobile games themselves only account for 9% of the revenue for the entire game industry. Smaller developers do not typically have the funds needed to produce merchandise, and thus must find effective ways to enthrall the attention o consumers that have limited interest in devoting themselves to a single game or entertainment application.