Author: Lucy

This allows card readers at a point of sale to be entirely replaced by the smartphone.

Flint, a mobile payment solutions company, has taken on massive competition, such as PayPal and Square, by releasing its new app that eliminates the need for magnetic card readers, in favor of a unique new system that uses the camera on iPhones for image recognition.

The Flint app applies new algorithms for reading the numbers right off the face of a card.

With the mobile payments data collected through the device camera, a transaction can be immediately completed. The CEO of Flint, Greg Goldfarb, explained that “It doesn’t take a picture of the card.” Instead, it uses the camera feature and “It just reads the numbers, and we do that to protect consumer privacy.”

The mobile payments system has been receiving a great deal of attention and applause, particularly for a newbie.

As a first time app developer, it is the recipient of a tremendous amount of positive attention. This is due to the unique tack that it has taken in the development of its mobile payments system and the marketing efforts that it has made to encourage adoption and use. For instance, it allows users to link an account to the Facebook page for their business. This gives customers who have made a purchase the opportunity to create testimonials that will be posted directly onto that page, as well as on their own social network wall.

At the moment, the app is exclusive only to iOS devices. Many in the mobile payments industry are keeping a close watch on this new addition to the marketplace, as they are keen to see how it stands up against a competition that is made up of some well established giants in the transaction domain.

So far, it is receiving positive attention due to its ability to quickly process mobile payments. Retailers like that a dongle is not required in order to make it work, and the free app allows them to begin accepting payments very soon after downloading. However, the primary drawback that has been pointed out is that it currently feels as though it is a step slower than the old fashioned method of swiping a card through a traditional reader.

The leading social media network has increased its advertising spending limit twice over.

Facebook Inc. has just revealed that the mobile marketing budget for the next quarter will be double that of what it was during the previous quarter, as it aggressively moves forward into the smartphone and table environments.

The social network leader has stated that these devices are among its primary goals.

Though Facebook has been experiencing considerable growth through its mobile marketing, last quarter’s progress was not as great as some of the more aggressive estimates from Wall Street had predicted. The company has expressed that broadening its reach through smartphones and tablets will be a vital step as a rapidly growing percentage of its more than one billion global users start to access their profiles by way of these devices.

The company’s mobile marketing business overall grew at the fastest pace it has seen since last May.

It was in that month that the initial Facebook public offering occurred. This mobile marketing growth assisted the business in growing its revenues by 40 percent. Those achievements were considerably greater than the targets set by Wall Street.

Just ahead of this announcement, the shares of Facebook had been riding steadily at $31.24 (US). However, immediately following the release of the new doubled mobile marketing budget, the shares dropped 8 percent, only to recover after hours that day. According to an analyst from Raymond James, Aaron Kessler, “Overall solid quarter but maybe high expectations going into the quarter.”

Facebook, itself, has stated that 23 percent of its total ad revenue comes from its mobile marketing business. This represents a considerable increase over its 14 percent from the third quarter.

Kessler also pointed out that he, and some other investors, may have been expecting more substantial results from the mobile marketing business. He stated that “Mobile revenue was expected to be a little higher.”

Facebook’s finance chief, David Ebersman, was the one to express that the social network had “basically doubled” its mobile marketing ad revenue from the Q3 2012 to the last quarter. He pointed out that half a year ago, there was no revenue over that channel at all, but that “In the course of a pretty short period of time, we’ve dramatically ramped up our ability to monetize mobile.”