BOKU.com – NO Plastic – Mobile based online payment system!

BOKU.com, mobile payments made easy, NO Plastic Needed.

Today morning I was munching my breakfast after a solid gym routine and while scanning through my feeds, chanced upon an article on Watblog by Maneesh about mobile payments system by a company called BOKU.com where you DON’T need any credit card, debit card, bank account etc to make a payment.

I just jumped in the air and got glued to this post and quickly pounced to check out this site BOKU.com. And YES, they are offering direct payments through mobile phones without any card plastic / bank account.

If BOKU.com continues to expand their partnerships with more and more service providers like, there is nothing which stops BOKU to become the World’s most trusted and easiest online payment system.

BOKU.com is funded by Benchmark Capital, Index Ventures, Khosla Ventures. VC’s investments includes high-profile start-ups like Infinera, MySQL, OpenTable, PureDigital, Second Life, Tellme, Twitter, Yelp, and Zillow, and franchise companies such as eBay, Juniper Networks and Red Hat.

BOKU.com’s strong management team comes from web, payment and mobile companies like Amazon, AT&T, Apple, Bank of America, GE, Google, mBlox and Paypal.

They claim to have a strong fraud management systems from their strong experience in managing risk in top notch companies like Amazon, PayPal, Google, Bank of America, and FirstUSA and they claim that Mobile phone is a different story as its used by only you… lets hope that’s the case.

This is how the payments work in BOKU.com, citing an example via @watblog a payment test they did in Facebook on Texas Holdem Poker application.

This can be the NEXT big thing to fuel online business growth with over couple of billion handsets across the world. The 3 step easy process just makes it so lucrative for customers to go ahead and make a quick payment.

As a publisher we are up-beat about this service and I personally am very optimiztic that this system will completely revolutionize the online payments in the coming time.

If this is increasingly adopted by more telecom providers, this will basically revolutionize the online payment systems in India as well as worldwide. I had written about one application of such system (to book local train tickets through mobile) on my blog last year. This is super exciting news for many online businesses. However, what would be interesting to note is, how telecom providers cope with managing the Post-Paid customers with bills and recoveries and charge-backs.

Anyways, this is Fantastic, I being in a online games company where we handle daily online payments… this will help us boost our conversions significantly. I think all online publishers will welcome this as a booster for their sales.

Looking forward to a close collaboration with BOKU.com.

India's First Mobile Phone Ads provider - Future Predictions ALIVE

Indians are hurrying to lead the race in 2008. Grabing that extra share in mobile Marketing Pie, is showing some early signs of rapid footsteps.

An early breakthrough attempt, which needs to sustain itself for atleast couple of years before their balance sheets would post break-evens or profits. With ZestADZ (www.zestadz.com) a pioneer in mobile advertising space in India, announcing that hey will now sell ads on facebook mobile platform allowing facebook developers to integrate mobile ads with their facebook mobile apps.
ZestADZ will be the first mobile ad platform from India to offer such service for Indian mobile developers.

Using this service, facebook mobile developers can monetize their mobile applications by embedding ads from leading advertisers from India. Through this development mobile developers can now tap into the Indian mobile market which currently has more than 200 million users, many of them moving upward using mobile Internet. The facebook India network has hundreds of thousands of users from India and it is expected that just like Orkut, facebook’s popularity will soar in India especially on their mobile sites.

It is evident, both sections of people are extremely optimistic, “Mobile Social Marketing is extremely important space for us to be in and we’re getting started with facebook which is very popular in India”, said Asif Ali, CTO mobile-worx adding that “We hope that this launch enable both advertisers and publishers to capitalize of the phenomenal growth of mobile Internet in India”.

Terry Uppal, President, Mobile-worx said “Advertisers in India will now have the perfect media platform to reach a large target audience on facebook with relevant and contextual ads to generate increase their brand awareness and revenues”.

About ZestADZ
ZestADZ - India's leading mobile advertising marketplace. ZestADZ is a multi-format (WAP, SMS and mobile-video) advertising platform. ZestADZ inserts highly targeted and relevant ads and delivers compelling value to users, publishers and advertisers. ZestADZ embodies the core tenets of Seth Godin’s permission based marketing.
For more information on ZestADZ visit http://www.zestadz.com

About mobile-worx
mobile-worx is a leading provider of mobility solutions with offices in US, India and Malaysia. Mobile-worx has offices in Chennai, Mumbai (Bombay), Los Angeles and Kuala Lumpur.
For more information on mobile-worx, please visit http://www.mobile-worx.com Contact Details: Shereen Begum, mobile-worx, +91 (044) 4257 6183 Or Email

Will Google Android dictate 2008 mobile strategy? 2008 Mobiles from Nokia, Apple, LG, Samsung, Moto, Sony

2008 would be an interesting year for mobile phones as New Generation Phones with ARTistic and Designer instincts seamessly integrated, with WiMAX, 3G and Software driven phones will be taking over the old rut.

1. Google Android

Surprised? The much rumored G-Phone never materialized, but in its place we were given Google Android, not a physical phone, but an operating system to rival heavyweights like Symbian and Windows Mobile. While many were disappointed not to see a shiny new piece of hardware to go face to face with the iPhone, for true mobile lovers Android represents something just as exciting. Seamless integration with Google’s maps, email, search and countless other applications, and an open source platform for developers to create their own mobile software. There’s even a million dollars worth of prize money for the best creations, as Google look to raise the bar once again. It's clear, Software is driving the hardware now.

2. 3G iPhone

Despite its enormous hype, the iPhone has been underwhelming in its assault on the UK mobile scene. Perhaps people have been put off by the exorbitant price, maybe its the lack of true USPs, either way, it’s fully expected that a second generation iPhone will be with us sooner rather than later, and this one will be equipped with 3G connectivity. It was a big disappointment not to see 3G on the original model, severely undermining the product’s excellent safari browser and touchscreen interface, but a Mk II iPhone should be enough to appease some doubters. The rumoured price drop might swing a few floating voters as well.

3. Nokia 8800 Arte series

The Nokia 8800 series has been one of Nokia’s most successful ranges, comfortably outselling far better equipped phones. Until you get your hands on one its difficult to understand the attraction, but up close it’s a cut above, a fabulously designed and beautifully engineered mobile phone that feels as good to use as it does to look at. The next generation of the series brings us the Nokia 8800 Arte models, and this time there’s a bit of substance behind the style, with a 3 megapixel camera, 3G and 1G of internal memory among other improvements. The Sapphire Arte even boasts a whole sapphire within the d-pad!

4. Samsung Armani phone
Following the arrival of Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, Levis and Tag Heuer onto the mobile scene it was surely only a matter of time before Armani followed suit. The Armani phone, designed in partnership with Samsung and also known as the Samsung P520 bears an unmistakable resemblance to the LG Prada phone with its black exterior, square frame and touch-screen interface, but its clearly a classy little number and we can’t wait to get our hands on it

5. Nokia 3110 Evolve

Nokia have been keen to display their green credentials of late, and at the forefront of this comes the Nokia 3110 Evolve, a phone for the environmentally aware. It’s a smart looking phone in silver and black, lightweight and slender, with a 1.4 megapixel camera and EDGE connectivity, but its the materials that have gone into the production of the Evolve that stand it apart from other phones. The casing, dubbed the ‘Bio-cover’ is made from 50% renewable materials, the packaging from 60% recyclable material and Nokia’s most efficient ever charger will make its users glow green with pride!

6. Sony Ericsson W890i
What! Another walkman phone! Surely not. Ok, it might not sound like the most interesting development in the world, but read on, the W890i is sure to turn a few heads. It’s the replacement for the ultra-cool, ultra-thin W880i, and it builds on the success of that handset by adding some mouthwatering features. The W890i is an HSDPA phone and also has a 3 megapixel camera, and is still only 9.9mm thick. Not bad when the iPhone stripped of 3G to shave off a few millimeters!

7. Tag Heuer phone
The Tag phone has been on the cards for a long time now, but an announcement in November suggests a release is imminent. French design house Modelabs are working on the design and the word is that we’ll see a product in the second half of 2008. But is it a watch or it is a phone?!!

8. Samsung F250

The Samsung F250 should be with us in early 2008 and looks like being an impressive addition to Samsung’s already extensive list of stylish slider phones. The F250 has a mirror-finish fascia and a brushed-metal keypad that recalls the Ultra range. The features aren’t outstanding, but it looks like being competitively priced.

9. Sony Ericsson P5i
The Sony Ericsson P5i is at this stage just a rumour, but its a good rumour so deserving of its place in this list! If reports are true then we’re looking at a 5 megapixel camera phone with WiFi, GPS and HSUPA connectivity. Mid 2008 release? Watch this space…

10. Motorola and Nokia WiMax phones
It has long been reported that Motorola and Nokia have targeted 2008 as the year to market their first Wimax phones, handsets that would be able to connect to citywide WiFi networks, and potentially to massively bring down the cost of mobile internet surfing for the average user.

* content help from ... http://www.dialaphone.co.uk/blog/?p=942

Tata Indiacom Offers Samsung Duo Dual Mode Handset in India

Following the Spice Telecom, Tata Indicom with Samsung has announced to launch Samsung Duo, the dual mode handset supporting GSM and CDMA technology.
According to Samsung, users can use two GSM or two CDMA or one of each sim cards in one handset.
The Duo handset is a slider phone having a 2.2-inch hybrid TFT display. Also it features 1.3 megapixel camera with 10X digital zoom and video recording. This phone is a real business phone supporting document files in excel, word and PDF formats.
The phone also offers good amount of entertainment to users through an MP3/AAC+ player supporting video in MPEG4. The phone has 10MB of internal memory and can support up to 1GB of external memory.
Besides, the phone has three input options ABCD’ keyboard or a normal mobile phone keypad and thanks to the handwriting recognition software that it incorporates, you also jot something on it.
Perhaps, the most interesting feature for Indians the Indian calendar it bundles which lists all the festivals, dates and important occasions. Additionally it has a Panchang featuring auspicious/inauspicious times during a day.
Currently the Duo is launched in Mumbai only at the price of Rs. 11,999, excluding the Indicom Sim card.

Was just discussing yesterday night ... Teleportation is the Next Technology change? Which is going to throw out all these mobiles and communication devices....I wish I could be alive to see that day!