You Don’t Need An App for That
In July of 2013 Toby Shapshak, the South African speaker, strategist and editor of Stuff Magazine, did a TED talk called You Don’t Need An App For That. Business leaders, innovators and experience designers would soon realize how profound this TED talk was to the rest of the world. Shapshak’s astute observations and message to […]
The Perfect Tool(s) for Joining the SMS Bot Gold Rush
Through the history of the Internet, we’ve seen a bots of all flavors (scrapers, viruses, worms), all often giving bots a bad name. They’re small bits of code that can carry out a host of malicious actions–stealing web content, screwing up web analytics, and encouraging click fraud. This all sounds pretty dire, but more recently, […]
What the U.S. Can Learn from Mobile Payments in Africa
Mobile payments have exploded in popularity just within the past year—40% of U.S. consumers have used mobile payments in 2015, compared to just 8% in 2014. In fact, mobile transactions are expected to surpass half a trillion dollars ($560 billion) in 2016, and Gartner predicts that mobile commerce will make of 50% of all U.S. […]
I Tried To Text Domino’s for Pizza And Had a Horrible Customer Experience
Tired of ordering pizza over the phone? Domino’s understands—that’s why they’ve launched AnyWare, letting you “order your favorite oven-baked goodness on your favorite devices.” I’m not going to lie—this is a pretty awesome use case (in theory). With AnyWare, you can text, tweet and even use your Smart TV to order pizza and more, and […]
The ‘Magic’ Model – How To Instantly Build Your Own SMS Concierge Service
After graduating from YCombinator back in February, a startup called Magic, an SMS concierge service, went viral, wowing Americans with the prospect that they could order almost anything via text message and have it show up at their door – not to mention the $12 million investment they garnered from Sequoia Capital, with a $40 […]
SMS Pays Off: Switching to Pay-by-Text
Mobile payments are all the rage lately—just look at Apple Pay or Square. It’s an exciting development that’s changing the face of mobile commerce–as long as customers have an iPhone 6 or access to a card reader for smartphones. But what if customers could pay without downloading an app? What if they could pay for […]