Wednesday, June 08, 2005

$5,000? SURE, PUT IT ON MY CELL PHONE

Now that I've been forced to go underground (so to speak), I've got one hand tied behind my back when I talk about one of my favorite topics - the wireless phone industry. I usually like talking about it in conjunction with my most favorite topic (Recruiting), but that's a whole 'nuther story.

Good article in BusinessWeek...

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_23/b3936060.htm

"Hello, cell phone? Meet electronic wallet."

NTT DoCoMo's on the move to make a common Japanese practice part of the larger world-wide lifestyle. DoCoMo's goal is to entrench the once-humble cell phone even deeper into consumer lifestyles by turning it into an electronic wallet. Would U.S. consumers bite?

Here's what a MobileWallet can do for you in Japan:
- groceries (a swipe of the handset pays for convenience store and vending machine purchases)
-online shopping (use the phone's scanner to order products from catalogues)
-movies (book tickets via the phone's Net link, then wave it over a sensor to enter the cinema)
-train travel (use handsets to pass turnstiles and board trains)
-credit cards (phones that double as credit cards - holy interest rates, Batman!)

Will U.S. consumers bite?

Are the mosquitos big in Texas?

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