Haiti and the Emergence of Mobile Payments

First: we here at FIWK send our thoughts and prayers to everyone affected by the earthquake that struck Haiti a few days back.

I wanted to use this space to bring up a topic we've already discussed twice here a FIWK (here and here): mobile commerce. We spent a good bit of time last week discussing the craziness that is the current technology sector, and what we thought the Telecom landscape might look like in 2020. However, I don't believe we once noted mobile payments - a concept that has blown up surrounding The Red Cross' relief efforts in Haiti (to the tune of $2M). The company responsible for the technology used by the Red Cross is mGive, and it's CEO noted that their Haiti effort could be a tipping point for mobile giving.

What are your thoughts? Do you think Americans are more likely to use such a service for normal payments now that they've seen how easy the process is?

Neville Hobson: 5 Examples of Twitter Innovation

Neville Hobson, a blogger about social media (albeit from an older generation than C-Mac, et al) recently wrote about Five examples of innovation with Twitter from five major companies.

He in turn is pulling these examples from Entrepreneur magazine, as linked in his blog. To be honest there isn't a lot of analysis here beyond a vague description of the campaign. But look at the total number of followers - 6,000 for Subway, 4,700 for McDonald's, 38,000 for Dunkin' Donuts? And have you looked at what those accounts post? As Aaron explained yesterday, this is almost a lesson in how NOT to use Twitter, right?

Music Tuesdays - Doubt by Links

I'm going extremely niche with this one - Links is a local LA band. Their website has some songs but I can't get them to play, so you're better off going to their YouTube channel, Linksisaband (which is a funny name)

You got any recommendations this week? Anything really local maybe?

Survivor Audition

I have submitted a couple Survivor auditions in the past, but have failed. In the past you were required to submit a VHS tape, but now you are allowed to upload a digital video. Now, I don't honestly plan on being accepted, but I love the show and I'm going to try again. This time, I'm asking for your help. Both in terms of ideas and technology, because I don't actually have a video camera of any kind.

Parallel Parking for Nicole is Better

In honor of our new SF friend, Nicole/More is Better, I figured I'd show her our to parallel park:






2 Notes:

1. You'll never find a spot with "an extra 5 feet of space" in SF; change this phrase to "an extra 5 inches of space".
2. Hills make parallel parking more entertaining - if not for the driver, for those watching the driver.

If confused, you should definitely not take lessons from this person, nor this fellow SF-er.