Author: Lucy

This digital currency has been exploding over the last short while and is now compatible with Apple.

The Bitcoin Wallet was once simply a mobile app for payments that would allow its users to be able to use its own digital currency “bitcoins” to be able to split the tab at restaurants, but it has recently grown in its possibilities and it is taking off around the world.

This smartphone wallet is increasing by a rate of about 5,000 users each day, up from 500 daily at the start of 2013.

The Bitcoin mobile app has found its way into headlines virtually every day last week, including everything from a college student’s incredibly successful effort to use a QR code combined with his wallet to gain payments by holding up a sign during a televised football game to giant national announcements regarding the technology. Mid week, Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairperson, discussed his views on the virtual currency. At the end of the week, the central bank in China announced that it was banning financial institutions in the country from handling transactions using Bitcoins. That announcement happened after an 89 percent value increase caused investors in that country to surge in their interest.

Many people feel that this mobile app provides greater payments convenience than what is out there.

The use of the application for making a transaction is essentially as simple as sending a text. This helps to explain why there are now hundreds of different programs using Bitcoins, including both Google Play and the Apple App Store. This is causing many consumers to choose to spend this type of virtual currency for making rapid transactions, instead of opting for cash. This includes splitting a bill at a restaurant or paying for food, but it is expanding into other areas, as well.

The interest that the world is now starting to see in this virtual currency has caused Bitcoins to skyrocket in their value. Last week, they broke all of their own previous records when they exceeded the $1,000 mark. That said, it is believed that the long term success of this mobile app is heavily dependent on how well it is adopted and how it continues to make sure that it is properly configured for use by smartphone and tablet users.

Some brands truly shined when it came to using the smartphone and tablet channels for advertising and promotions.

The winners of the Most Effective Mobile Marketing titles were announced at a 2013 awards ceremony in London, recently, with top brands grabbing up some of the most coveted positions.

Entries of the winners came from countries around the world but primarily involved large corporations.

This year’s Most Effective Mobile Marketing Awards winners include brands such as Colgate, Pepsi Co., Orange, Specsavers, Mothercare, and Warburtons. Entries for the winners came from around the globe, with countries that include the United States, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Poland, and India.

There were 270 attendees representing the brands, agencies and firms for the Most Effective Mobile Marketing awards ceremony.

More of the brands that came out on top at this ceremony included The Body Shop, TUI Travel, the British Journal of Photography, and Universal Music. There were also agencies that received awards, including Golden Gekko, OMD, AKQA, Appitude Media, Iris Mobile, Nimbletank, Upstream, Manning Gottlieb OMD, Leo Burnette, Publicis Blueprint, and Initiative.

The awards for two different categories were given to Mothercare. Their partnership with Demandware was seen as the most effective m-commerce solution, and they also had the best b2c app. There was particular praise for this company’s application as it provides a comprehensive advice mixture, which includes a feature for a pregnancy guide that is broken down week by week. It also allows consumers to shop the entire line of products at Mothercare.

The partnership between Warburton and Golden Gekko received the award for the b2b app, Red Insights Tablet. It is used by the Retail Field team of the baker for the management of inventory throughout the United Kingdom’s over 20,000 different retail outlets. It is believed that every year, 5,000 man-days worth of time are saved in data entry because of this application.

In terms of the most effective mobile marketing, itself, the best advertising campaign award was given to the partnership between Intel and OMD, for a crowdsourcing campaign that employed Shazam for encouraging X-Factor viewers, last year, to star in an ad that would run at the end of the final show.