Tag: mobile apps

Venmo is finding success among a younger generation

Venmo, a payments firm based in New York, may become the flagship mobile commerce facilitator among millenials. Younger generations are finding physical currency to be bothersome, opting instead to use digital currency and store their financial information online. The massive popularity of mobile technology has begun causing a major shift in the commerce world, and millenials choosing to forsake physical money are at the heart of this shift. Firms like Venmo may stand to benefit from this trend.

Younger generations often cause a shift in technology and society and mobile commerce is coming out on top

This is not the first time that a younger generation of people have caused a major shift in society. Traditional telephone land lines are no longer popular thanks to the growth of smartphones, which received strong support from young consumers. Young people are also abandoning traditional television services, opting instead to get the majority of their entertainment online in some form. Mobile commerce has managed to find a great deal of success in various sectors, and young consumers have helped secure this success.

Venmo processed $314 million during the first quarter of 2014

Venmo has processed some $314 million in mobile payments during the first quarter of this year, a 62% increase in the payments it processed in the prior quarter. The Venmo application has become quite popular with younger consumers, with many of these people using the app to send money to their friends and pay for products online. One thing that sets Venmo apart from its competitors in the mobile commerce field is that there are no fees associated with transferring money through the mobile application.

Some mobile payments firms are finding more success than others

Venmo is not the only mobile payments firm that has found success by engaging younger consumers. There is no singular platform that these consumers favor, however, and they frequently jump from one mobile payments service to the next. This fickle nature has made it difficult for some firms to find lasting success in their competitive market.

Crowdsourced policing apps allow mobile users to report illegal fishing.

Although reporting illegal fishing using smartphone apps will not eliminate the problem of overfishing entirely, certain mobile technology, such as reporting apps like ShipWatch, make it easier for users to quickly and conveniently report suspicious fishing activity they might witness, which could help improve local enforcement in the area.

Countries do not lack fishing rules but they have a hard time enforcing laws.

Globally, it is estimated that three quarters of fishing grounds are overfished. What this means is that fish are being removed from waters at a quicker rate than the population is being replenished. One of the main reasons this problem exists is people engage in unlawful fishing practices.

Strict laws do exist around the world for fishing grounds, but it is not always easy to enforce them. For instance, in Ghana, there are certain fishing bans, but the country does not have the necessary resources that would enable it to adequately police its coastline. Approximately a third of all fishing that takes place across this West African region is done so illegally.

Mobile technology may be key in helping this problem.

According to Nature Conservancy Senior Technologist Matt Merrifield, “There are laws in place to say [the fishing] is illegal. The problem is they lack any kind of reporting mechanism. Our idea is to build out a little citizen science tool for any fisherman who’s out there on water. They can take a photo and report these guys.”

Merrifield recently worked on ShipWatch, a reporting app, for a Fishakathon event that was organized by the US State Department. He said that once everyone owns a location-aware phone and they have the ability to document illegal fishing activities and what is being caught, innovation will result. He added that the infrastructure did not exist in the past but once people have the ability to submit data and centralize it, this will help to solve the issue.

The ShipWatch mobile technology app is simple software that is based around the online mobile media sharing and social networking service, Instagram. Whenever a user witnesses what they believe is questionable fishing activities, they can snap a photo, create a tag, and upload what they have captured to a central map.