Almost a year ago, Starbucks announced its now-famous partnership with Square Wallet. Starbucks invested $25 million in the startup, and in return Starbucks promised that about 7,000 locations – many in metropolitan areas – would accept payment via the app. The promise was simple: simply tap the app, scan the phone, and walk away from the counter. And indeed, many locations fulfill this promise; but for a company that is so highly focused on customer service, widespread reports of failures after many months of supposed integration come as a blow to the partnership. On many occasions, users ave found the experience of using Square to be awkward, inconsistent, and at worst impossible. Managers and baristas have been found to lack basic training to use the app, even in locations that supposedly support the service. In one instance, a barista even accidentally clicked into a user’s personal messages in an attempt to manually enter the barcode number into the register. Problems might include a lack of wide-spread Square adoption, or an attempt to attempt to fix bugs in real time until the app hits a tipping point and then works seamlessly, much like the original mobile payments app. Starbucks has officially stated that they are “100% committed to Square,” but either way you slice it, any problems with Square integration – whether they’re a result of barista inexperience, technological malfunction, or both – are a knock to Starbucks’ reputation as a customer service-first company, and to the startup itself.
Tag: Business
What Does Facebook’s Redesign Mean For Advertisers?
As many of you know, Facebook’s big news feed announcement was yesterday, and its key new feature was the “mobile-inspired interface” with bigger photos and a unified design for, “a more immersive [experience].” Yes, there was also the new organization of the feeds, the new prominence placed on visual content, and the black sidebar, but the new redesign really does mean a whole new advertisement approach to the social network. Facebook’s streamlined UI means more space for bigger featured photos, which means businesses can buy ad space that will, almost literally, take up the entire screen – this feature could mean that luxury brands that are used to larger ad spaces in magazines could easily turn these campaigns into digital projects. Image-based advertising for the social media platform instantly became richer, more visible, and much more accessible to the average user. As well, promoted links will have larger blurbs of text to read, allowing advertisers more space to legitimately sell each click, rather than just hoping for sometimes gimmicky click estimates.
In addition, Facebook’s new content-specific feeds can be a boon to advertisers, or conversely hurt them depending on how often a given user frequents specific feeds. But, the biggest plus for advertisers is that the Pages feed, now called “Following,” is much more prominent and gives users regular updates. People who want stories now have a much easier way of finding them, and in turn, clicking on the ads that they want to see. Then again, the Friends-only feed is ostensibly a no-go zone for advertisers, so trying to break into the users who tune ads out entirely by just following friends will be more challenging.
The moral of the story is that Facebook now puts much more control into the users hands; if advertisers play their cards right, however, they will be able to interact with users in a much more pronounced and nuanced fashion. There will be many more daily opportunities for advertisers, so long as they exploit these new opportunities with intent and purpose.
HitBliss Pays Consumers To Watch Ads
HitBliss, a new service that’s now in Beta, is an advertising tool and content provider that aims to revolutionize the way consumers deal with ads. The HitBliss system features a two-pronged approach: HitBliss Store and HitBliss Earn. The Store is just like any other content platform that sells movies and TV shows, but it has no advertisements. Instead, a separate but affiliated service, HitBiss Earn – dubbed the “Pandora of Advertising” – allows users to earn real credits towards purchasing shows and movies in the Store by watching a series of targeted ads.
HitBliss Earn has several levels of functionality. It permits users to opt into an advertising profile that would allow advertisers to target the user based on gender, name, and location, as well as Internet history to deliver Google-like precision ads. The user can pick and choose the level of targeting, though of course the more data you give, the greater and quicker the credit rewards come your way.
The startup, however, has anticipated the privacy backlash their policies could unleash. They’ve made it very clear that at every step, the consumer is entirely in control of the information they choose to divulge. Users can reveal no information at all and just accrue credits through watching random ads, but they’ll earn credits much slower. As well, any data the user might choose to share is never transmitted to an advertiser or permanently stored; it is exclusively used for that individual HitBliss Earn session.
Once a user opts-in to receive targeted messages, says HitBliss co-founder and VP Sharon Peyer, “the HitBliss app retains the user’s profile information. Then the user’s profile information looks at the advertiser’s criteria… The matching happens locally, within the app.” The only thing advertisers see is whether the user was a match, and if the user clicks through the coupons or offers, they’ll receive more credit. And to ensure that the user stays focused on the ads and doesn’t walk away, they utilize a countdown clock that, once expired, will delete all credit previously earned with the program. It’s like an online focus group: if you’ve opted in, you have to participate to reap the rewards.
Of yet, HitBliss is only available for Mac, PC, Android, and iOS devices, but as the program is only in Beta testing, that’s not entirely surprising. But it’s one of the first apps that makes clear a fundamental advertising premise: Eyes, ears, and especially personal data are worth money; HitBliss gives you that money in the form of TV Shows, Movies, and Games.
Pertino Launches Small Business Cloud Network
Pertino, an Internet startup, today debuted their cloud-based, hardware-free network for small businesses. They use Amazon Web Services (AWS), which makes it possible for businesses to create secure, online networks through integration of a combination of its software and AWS data centers. Businesses log into Pertino and connect to a data plane that routes them to their network that’s managed by their service called software-defined networking. People can file share or use the network to create a remote desk service.
Now in a limited beta run, Pertino has installed its software in data centers worldwide, from Sydney to Sao Paolo. As the AWS network is nearly global, Pertino can expand its reach into nearly any expanding network, and aims to take out hardware systems made by companies like Cisco and Juniper. As it stands, more and more companies are moving to software-based cloud networks for streaming, data storage, and file transfer, rendering traditional hardware storage and transfer systems nearly obsolete. For now, Pertino is competing with other companies like Big Switch Networks and Nicera, but Pertino is specifically targeted to small businesses and startups, with a cost of $10 per person. For now, Pertino is only compatible with Windows 7, but executives say cross-OS compatibility will be coming later this year.
32 Startups Debut at 500 Startups Annual Demo Day
500 Startups is at it again with their fifth annual Demo Day, where 32 new startups show what they’ve done with four months and $250,000 of initial funding from 500 Startups’ VC fund. This year’s class includes a mixed bag of companies including coupon services for consumers, information gathering for realtors, a handful of apps for iOS and Android, as well as buying clubs for wine, tea, and other goods. It’s still early for all of these companies, but some look extremely promising, and this certainly won’t be the last we hear from them.
Foursquare Gives Business Owners Their Own App
Interesting take on a consumer-facing social media app creating an enterprise app rather than just an enterprise dashboard
