buzz360 blog

Amazon's Mobile payment structure

Finally, one of the world’s largest online retailers announces the ability to pay via mobile phone. It features a set of API’s for mobile developers to allow them to tap into Amazon’s payment services. The service also features Amazon’s 1-click checkout, making my person addiction to “suggested items” all the more tempting.

It’s good to see Amazon finally jump ahead with mobile technology. My hope is that as users become familiar with mobile payments that utilize Amazon’s technology, we’ll start to see a critical mass of users form withing the United States. Mobile payments are not a new thing, but it has taken some time for early adoption to gain traction. The real question now is, how long before I can replace my credit card and my wallet? South Korea, per usual, is already way ahead of the game. Users can already do all of their grocery shopping, coffee buying and who knows whatever else via their mobile phone. They even have their ID cards integrated into their cell. I long for the day where US citizens can get rid of that leathery tri-fold taking up too much room in their back pocket.

Developers wanting to check out the API’s can do so by going here:  Amazon MPS website.

-Chris Bergman

It’s finally happened. Social Media has been infiltrating it’s way into mainstream society for the last few years. We’ve also seen it slowly leak onto the screens of everyone’s mobile phones. The catch? Thus far, it’s been through third party apps that run on the phone’s OS. Well, today changed all of that. Motorola announced their new custom Android OS, MotoBlur, at GigaOM’s Mobilize convention today.

The front screen of the OS features an integrated mashup of your Facebook page, your Twitter feed, your Myspace page and more. You can also quickly update your status across all of the networks directly through the OS. No more need for Tweetdeck, Tweetie, Twitterfon, or any other third party apps.cliq1

The first two MotoBlur handsets, the DEXT and CLIQ, won’t be available until later this year. If MotoBlur catches, I think it will change the game for the hundreds of developers who are creating apps for social media, at least for the Android OS. Somehow, I don’t think Apple would be willing to allow API integration into their OS any time soon. It took them two years just to allow push notification. Could Android be the future of Mobile OS’s? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Want to play around with the OS? Go here: http://bit.ly/jkEpb

-Chris Bergman