Social Commerce

Company Spotlight
Virtual Piggy’s Online Wallet Strengthened By Discover’s Power
March 10, 2014

Virtual Piggy, developer of the youth-oriented online wallet Oink, says the Discover Network will power its service. The company will launch the updated service in the U.S., followed by launches in Europe and Asia later in 2014, according to a company statement. “Discover and Oink...

Cool
Crowdfunding Student Loans … With A Twist
March 10, 2014

Next week, a startup called Pave will be launching a new group of New York “Rising Stars,” who will be able to take advantage of the company’s unusual investment program designed to help individuals, including recent college graduates, get their careers off the ground. (Jump...

Company Spotlight
Social-Media Talk Turns Positive For mPayments
March 10, 2014

Consumer sentiment regarding mobile payments has improved “drastically,” as social media conversations have moved to discussions over which options should be used and which are most secure, according to a new MasterCard report. In its second annual global Mobile Payments Study, conducted with PRIME Research,...

News
Ryanair and PayPal Working On Smartphone Payments
March 10, 2014

04 March 2014  Irish Airline Ryanair is collaborating with PayPal Ireland to help advance sales. Their goal is to enable Ryanair customers to buy flight tickets using PayPal’s smartphone software. As a member of Ryanair’s board, Louise Phelan, PayPal vice president of global operations for...

Chirpify Launches Interactive #Actiontags
March 10, 2014

05 March 2014  Hashtag activator Chirpify has introduced #Actiontags for TV, enabling consumers to post to Twitter, Facebook or Instagram using the “activated hashtags” they see on TV to instantly purchase products or respond to campaigns. For example, consumers who tweet #testdrive in response to...

B2B Payments
Ripple Launches New Developer Portal
March 10, 2014

06 March 2014  Ripple Labs, the creators of the Ripple open-source, distributed payment protocol, is hoping to increase its market traction by opening up to developers with a portal designed specifically for them. Initially the portal will house the new Rest API, with plans to...

Cool
Global Luxury Market Growing, But Is That Good?
March 04, 2014

Looming store closures by Macy’s, J.C. Penney and Sear Roebuck and Co. represent a grim example of the general tenuousness of consumer spending. Tick up a few notches in socioeconomic standing, however, things appear a bit brighter. Roughly 10 million shoppers enter the luxury market...

Company Spotlight
MasterCard To Distribute PayAnywhere mPOS
December 18, 2013

PayAnywhere and MasterCard have announced a new partnership that will see MasterCard distribute a branded, co-branded or white-label solution of PayAnywhere’s mPOS solutions to help small business owners (SMBs) reduce friction at the checkout, a December 19 press release revealed. As part of the deal,...

Hmmm
How Social Motives Can Unlock Spending
December 13, 2013

St. Louis-based cafe chain Panera Bread turned more than a few heads when it revealed in 2010 that it would launch an unconventional non-profit restaurant chain called Panera Cares. These locations would do something unprecedented in the corporate world: allow consumers to set the price...