To recap, the term, “mobile wallet”  covers any mobile phone from which you can pay for real goods via your ‘phone. This can be through NFC technology allowing you to connect your ‘phone to a payment device (like an Oyster card works in the London Underground) or via ‘the cloud’ where your payment details are stored online and accessed through your phone to pay for goods.

According to March 2012 panel-based research by marketing solutions agency Catapult, just one-quarter of US consumers were at least somewhat interested in using a mobile wallet for in-store purchases. In contrast, 58% were uninterested—including 41% who reported a complete lack of interest. Correspondingly, in January 2012, market research firm TNS found that 60% of US mobile phone users were not interested in mobile wallet technology.

[quoted from emarketer]

The report highlighted consumer respondents worried about losing their mobile ‘phone (or it being stolen) as a major obstacle to take up. Furthermore, the article highlighted the lack of perceived benefit for the consumer to using the ‘phone as a payment device.

 About one-third of respondents said mobile wallets would be a more convenient way to pay, with 28% specifically citing coupons sent straight to the phone as an anticipated benefit and 24% citing faster checkouts as a draw. But fully half of respondents said they saw no benefit to having a mobile wallet.

To these two issues we add a third. The lack of Apple Support.

We believe with the audience scale and marketing power of the iPhone, a good  many more consumers could be encouraged to use the Mobile Walle. Until we receive the official specifications for the ‘next iPhone’ we can’t be sure of its path.

BirdSong can be used to access any publicly available Twitter account to deliver on demand insights. Watch the video below, or visit BirdSong. Sign up is free and the first report is on us.

If you are seeking to identify new people to follow, the current Twitter solution would leave you to ‘guess’ based on user profiles.

With BirdSong we have created a more insightful way to identify followers and following. By including key follower and following data, BirdSong helps you judge the value of a potential follower. Add in the Klout score on demand and you have a firmer base to plan from.

You can request a beta test invite here.

Here are a few insights we picked up:

1. For such an important account we were surprised to see it was registered less than a month ago on March 3rd.

2. Of the accounts identified, Madonna had more female followers than male. 2. With a score of 69, Klout ranked Madonna as a ‘Pundit’.

3. Many of the accounts following had little or no presence (dormant or ‘empty’ accounts.)

4. Madonna only followed 166 accounts. These were a combination of Madonna fans, ‘celebs’ and news personalities. 

5. Many Madonna fans who were followed have updated their profiles to reflect this important status.

With only one day of activity, we cannot glean too much insight from this account. However the influencers, gender split and creation date are interesting.

You can see more oveview in this infographic. Please click for a larger version.

The latest news from Google is the inclusion of live London Underground data showing status updates for your chosen station.

The inclusion of live data into Google Maps (Desktop and Anrdoid) is another great example of how ‘The Internet of things’ is permeating into consumers’ digital landscape.

Each week the band pick a new song title which becomes the Instagram hashtag for Instagrammers to capture something they feel represents the title.

All the results are then pulled from Instagram onto the Elbow website.

The campaign is an inspired way to promote the deluxe release of their back catalogue.

So, with the advent of old content in a new fashion, will we see a rash of new likes for old content? How will that affect the size and influence of these accounts? Will ‘classic’ brands regain some cred? Only time will tell.

Today is the same, more articles about Pinterest. BUT they are talking about how websites can now block Pinterest traffic. Does this mean interest in Pinterest is starting to cool? Like many social networks their time in the sun may be passing. Comparisons to Quora’s huge rise this time last year are being drawn, and we can also see similarities with the peaked interest in Empire Avenue mid 2011.

Does this mean Pinterest is doomed? No. Like Quora and Empire Avenue the hype for Pinterest may settle down and the business will focus on growing the value and engagement of its users rather than meteoric growth in user sign ups. An amusing ‘made up stat’ this morning summed up how many users are experiencing Pinterest.

We believe Pinterest has a strong and relevant opportunity for brands moving forward. The dying hype [if it is dying] is no reason for concern. We will be covering Pinterest as part of our Directors Brieifng examining the role of curated content for brands and will continue to blog where relevant.

You can follow Jamie on Pinterest 

These are just some of the questions we aim to answer with BirdSong for Twitter. Currently in private testing, BirdSong will empower brand owners and agencies to plan more effective Twitter strategies by understanding more about the competitor activity and profiles as well as identifying influential followers for potential engagement.

BirdSong for Twitter will enable you to check any Twitter account for this level of detail. Check out our review of Lady Gaga‘s twitter presence to see the scale we can achieve.

With this testing version we have a few bugs to fix including better representation of timezones and identification of date ranges for the analysis.

BirdSong for Twitter is part of our growing brand tools that include Facebook insight and comparison for brands.  If you would like to know more get in touch.

Click for a larger image

Click for a larger image

As part of our BirdSong development we are testing out new Twitter insight and visualisations. The aim of BirdSong is to help you identify tweet beahviour for any chosen Twitter account with specific focus for brands seeking gap analysis of their competitors or to help identify and engage influential tweeters.

Unlike other tools BirdSong is open to deliver insight on any account you choose, not just delivering insight to your own account. As you can see from this infographic, we chose the biggest Twitter account, Lady Gaga.  For a brand example, check out our Pepsi analysis or BA.

This infographic is from the live dashboard we are currently testing. The current image misses some elements such as timezone of tweets and date period of this review but goes a long way to helping you understand Twitter behaviour.

If you would like to know more about BirdSong, get in touch.