Square who? Intuit brings its GoPayment mobile card reader to Verizon Wireless stores

Intuit and Verizon Wireless announced this morning that they will be partnering to offer Intuit’s GoPayment mobile card reader in Verizon stores, bringing the device to more than 2,300 retail locations across the US.

Aside from the obvious benefit of more widespread availability, the partnership shines some much-needed light on Intuit’s two-year-old GoPayment technology. GoPayment launched a year before the more hyped mobile payment startup Square. which has made its tiny mobile credit card reader synonymous with mobile payments.

Intuit’s GoPayment credit card reader slides into your phone or tablet’s headphone jack (yes, just like Square’s), and works together with a free app to accept payments. It opens the door for you to take payments anywhere, which could be particularly useful for small business owners. GoPayment supports iOS, Android, and BlackBerry devices. It can also synchronize with Intuit’s QuickBooks and QuickBooks Online accounting software, a major plus compared to Square.

As part of the partnership, Verizon Wireless customers will be able to get the GoPayment credit card reader for free when they activate their GoPayment account and mail in a $29.97 rebate. Intuit would have been better off figuring out another way to offer the discount to customers, since a mail-in rebate isn’t as tempting to consumers as an instant discount.

Square, on the other hand, has offered its mobile card reader for free from the start, which has likely accounted for its massive growth and hype. Square’s card reader is also sold at Apple stores for $10, but you instantly get that money back when you sign up for a Square account.

There’s no monthly or transaction fee for the basic GoPayment service, but you will get charged 2.7 percent for swiped transactions. For heavy users, Intuit also offers a $12.95 a month plan with a 1.7 percent rate for swipe transactions. Verizon Wireless users will receive two free months of the monthly plan when they sign up. GoPayment can also support up to 50 users on a single account.

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Tags: GoPayment, mobile payments, smartphones, tablets

Companies: Intuit, Square, Verizon Wireless

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PapayaMobile reveals growth stats for mobile games

PapayaMobile, a Chinese maker of a mobile social networking platform,? is announcing today that its users have reached more than 25 million users, up 940 percent since January 2010.

The Beijing-based company also said that more than 11 million paid transactions have occurred using Papaya’s virtual currency. Those numbers suggest that mobile app and game developers are starting to get traction on the Android platform.

Papaya makes a mobile social network for game developers to use to help their games spread faster and become more social. It helps them make money by enabling users to buy virtual currency which can be used to buy virtual items in games. One of the big questions is whether the success in Asian social games or Facebook social games — where users are now quite comfortable buying virtual goods in games — will become as popular in mobile social games on smartphones in the West.

The Papaya network generates an average revenue per paying user of $22.60 per month (ARPPU). On average, one in five users purchases Papaya’s virtual currency in social games that use the Papaya Game Engine, which is used to develop social mobile games.

Those are pretty good figures, given that mobile users have historically paid less money for games than social gamers. Papaya said that the ARPPU is more than $10 per month for social games that were built using the Papaya Game Engine. And popular titles earn more than $20,000 in revenue per month.

“We think when it comes to monetization of mobile games, we have superior metrics,” said Paul Chen, head of developer relations at PapayaMobile. “We think that mobile games are gaining in momentum as an industry.”

And, get this, the top amount spent by a single user on the Papaya network is $4,440. Yes, somebody spent that much money for virtual goods in a game. That’s what you call engagement.

By region, China has grown the fastest, with users up 500 percent from January 2011. Europe is up 224 percent and the U.S. is up 222 percent. Users have sent 93 million messages across the Papaya network and they have played more than 874 million game sessions.

Chen said that Papaya’s numbers are much better than the estimate numbers that the company’s rival, Ngmoco, has seen on the Android Market in the four weeks since it launched its Mobage mobile social network.

PapayaMobile was founded in 2008 and it has 50 employees. Rivals include Gree/OpenFeint, DeNA/Ngmoco, and RIM/Scoreloop. PapayaMobile offers its own Game Engine software development kit as well as tools to make games more social with chat and leaderboard functions. It also has a monetization engine that helps games make money via offers and other means.

The company has raised $22 million to date from DCM and Keytone Ventures. Developers have integrated the Papaya Engine into 350 games.

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Tags: Mobage, mobile games, mobile social game networks

Companies: DeNA, Gree, Ngmoco, OpenFeint, PapayaMobile

People: Paul Chen

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Claritics expands into mobile analytics for Android apps

Social analytics firm Claritics said today it has launched a new analytics platform for games and apps on Android mobile devices.

Back in May, Claritics raised a $1.5 million round as it talked about helping social game and app developers analyze their data and reap more money from their efforts. Now the company is extending that effort to mobile apps on Google’s mobile operating system.

Mountain View, Calif.-based Claritics calls its work “social intelligence.” Claritics has been testing its cloud-based analytics with partners that range from game companies to utilities and media companies. It’s all about getting enough data and organizing it so that it becomes “actionable.”

The company’s vision is to leverage the immediacy of the social web and its rich profile and behavioral data and to create automated processes around it. That allows developers to optimize their reach, retain users, and launch revenue campaigns on the fly. The real-time data become useful not just for looking back but for predicting the future.

The new mobile platform is self-service and allows developers to figure out in real-time what is working well — or not so well — in their mobile games. Claritics lets users segment their data based on device type, carrier, campaigns, location and other factors. Claritics says it has made its sign-up process and instrumentation more intuitive to dramatically reduce the time it takes to get the analytics up and running. App makers can use the service to evaluate user engagement and the behavior of those who buy things in games. Other services provide rudimentary analysis of user behavior, while Claritics’ service is more granular, said Raj Pai, chief executive of Claritics.

“We’re bringing an enterprise-level, ‘big data’ analytics mentality to app developers on social and mobile platforms,” Pai said.

Rivals include Kontagent, Apsalar and Flurry. Previously, Claritics said its platform has been in private beta testing with more than 100 potential customers. The company was founded in 2010 and has around 10 to 15 employees. Investors include Cervin Ventures and Tie Angels.

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Tags: Analytics, big data, mobile apps, mobile games, social games, social intelligence

Companies: Claritics

People: Raj Pai

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King of Code finalist: Sérgio Silva empowers small business owners to go mobile

(The King of Code contest is sponsored by Windows Phone and is open to developers on any mobile platform.)

In today’s connected world, small business owners can’t be restricted to their homes or offices. They need to be able to make decisions and react to news on the fly. That’s the conviction behind Cube, a suite of mobile applications spearheaded by developer Sérgio Silva.

His motto: “Your business anytime, anywhere.”

Designed for doctors, lawyers, contractors, consultants, photographers, freelancers and other small business leaders, Cube provides a full portfolio of management products and services. Not only does it offer simple, intuitive access to your relevant business data wherever you are, it keeps it in-sync between devices, including a browser-based portal.

“Cube’s approach is that it’s your data that’s important, so everything is synced between devices transparently and automatically,” Silva says. “You can easily start a timer on a task on the web app in the office, grab your phone and stop the timer when you arrive at your client’s office, then use your tablet to generate and email a timesheet and expense report just in time for your meeting.”

Cube mobile apps are native on their respective platforms — iOS and Android — and are all part of the broader, CubeAnywhere solution created by Silva’s team. The suite already has a global presence, localized in 10 languages, with clients in 86 countries.

A key benefit of Cube is that it scales automatically whether you’re a single freelance consultant, leading a project team, or managing a whole company. If you’re an individual user, Cube tailors the experience to focus on your data. As your team expands, so does Cube, adding time card and expense approvals, vacation and holiday calendars, company reports and user management tools.

Cube integrates with Google Apps and works seamlessly with hosting services GitHub and BitBucket and social apps like Twitter. The ability to use just one username and password means zero setup time. Data already stored in the cloud, like contacts, calendars and documents, can also be easily accessed.

While Cube chose iPhone and Android for its initial rollout — based solely on numbers of users — the goal is to also offer solutions for RIM and Windows Phone. The company has big plans for new features and services as well.

“Cube processes data from time entries, expenses, mileage, project income and costs so you have a complete picture of the financial health of your projects,” Silva says. “With this set of data already in, we can now build an invoicing module, an HR module to pay salaries and reimburse expenses, a project planning module, a CRM and salesforce management module, and more. All of these will be easily adopted because the data that underlies all these is already there.”

Before jumping into Cube, Silva served as a project and portfolio management consultant for several large international enterprises across sectors, from telecom to finance to utilities. He says this experience deepened is understanding of how different professionals need different resources based on diverse challenges — even within the same organizations.

“I also realized that the kinds of tools these companies use are out of reach for small companies and individuals, even though they also have requirements that can be answered with the right tool,” Silva says. “Our goal is to bring quality, enterprise-level tools to everyone.”

Cube is self-funded but is on the lookout for both partners and funding that could accelerate the development and delivery of its platform.

Every week, with the sponsorship of Windows Phone, VentureBeat is crowning the very best mobile developers as “King of Code.” We’re looking for innovative developers who are really pushing the envelope in the mobile space, regardless of the platforms they’re developing on. Enter here for a chance to win a profile on VentureBeat.com, a $1,000 AMEX Gift Card, an Xbox & Kinect Package, and/or a Windows Phone 7 device.

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Tags: CubeAnywhere, King of Code, mobile office, Office

Companies: Cube

People: Sérgio Silva

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Calling all developers and startups: Special pricing for Mobile 2.0 event

This post is sponsored by Mobile 2.0.

In recognition of the longstanding cooperation between VentureBeat and Mobile 2.0, a special discount has been created for VentureBeat readers for the upcoming event on Sept 1. Register here for Mobile 2.0 using discount code “VB” and receive 25% off!

Mobile 2.0 brings together the brightest minds in mobile to explore the multiscreen world (native vs web apps), the cost of innovation, disruptive technologies, Next Generation Advertising, complexities and solutions posed by HTML 5 and a discussion of current events such as Google’s acquisition of Motorola and HP’s abandonment of the mobile device business.

Who will be at Mobile 2.0?

Seasoned mobile executives from AT&T Interactive, Microsoft, and othersLeading Silicon Valley VCsUp and coming mobile startupsNotorious developers such as Peter Vesterbacka of RovioSee the full list of speakers here

What will the agenda address?:

The latest trends in consumer acceptance, mobile design, monetization and advertising, use cases for HTML 5, and current events across the mobile landscape. Check out what is already being discussed on the Mobile 2.0 blog. See the full conference agenda here.

How is this event different from others?

It’s designed to engage both the panelists and audience members during the plenary and workshop sessions to drive in-depth conversation across a wide variety of relevant topics. All participants will have access to session leaders through open dialog, staying true to the “Always On, Always Connected” theme.

What is the cost?

There is a two-tier pricing structure:
$299.00 for businesses (with 25% discount)
$149.25 for a developer ticket (with 25% discount)
Enter the discount code, “VB” when you register for Mobile 2.0 here.

Event details:
When: September 1 — all day (doors open at 8am)
Where: The Grand Hyatt near Union Square — San Francisco

Connect with the Mobile 2.0 founders here: info@mobile2event.com.

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Placecast combines “geofenced” ShopAlerts with mobile apps

Location-based digital marketing company Placecast has made a name for itself by sending text messages to users when they’re within range of a business that is offering discounts. Now the company is expanding these updates, called ShopAlerts, to work within mobile apps.

San Francisco-based Placecast will take advantage of location-based push notifications in apps for iPhones, Android devices and other smartphones. The new service shows how mobile marketing is becoming more sophisticated now that it can use a person’s location, shopping habits and spending history to determine what kind of promotion that user would be willing to receive. These advancements mean there could be a real future for “geofenced” marketing promotions — offers that are pushed to users within a certain geographic radius.

Placecast can now use apps and text messages to draw consumers into stores. On top of that, it can use ShopAlerts to get potential customers to come back to apps created by retailers for new discounts and deals. Traditionally, users fire up apps only if they are intentionally looking for a brand while shopping.

“We learned from our research that people just want to get a message when there is a good deal nearby,” said Alistair Goodman, CEO of Placecast, in an interview. “The combination of push and location allows brands to better take advantage of apps they have already built.”

Placecast is hoping that the new service will prove useful for retailers trying to get more engagement with consumers for the upcoming fall shopping season. Placecast will work directly with retailers to integrate ShopAlerts into their apps.? Users have to actively download Placecast and opt-in to the service before they receive any offers.

Rival companies such as Groupon have talked about plans to offer location-based offers through mobile phones, but Placecast is already there and offering a handful of innovative features. Using geofences, Placecast can sense whether a user is near a store, even if the app is turned off, and deliver real-time notifications about deals as the shopper passes by. This kind of pitch could be more effective than text messages, since the pitches can take a more elaborate multimedia form to entice a user. It can tap customer relationship management data, loyalty, past purchases, time of day, and even the weather to shape relevant recommendations for the shoppers.

In a survey by market researcher comScore, about 5 percent of users said they had opened a Groupon app to search for offers, while 6 percent have opened a LivingSocial app. But 14 percent of the people who used those apps said they had opened it after receiving a push notification. Greg Sterling, principal at Sterling Market Intelligence, said that geofence retail marketing is one of the biggest trends of 2011.

Placecast’s ShopAlerts is used by major carriers such as AT&T in the U.S. and O2 in the United Kingdom. Brands using it include Starbucks, L’Oreal, Subway, Kohl’s, Kmart, HP, Chico’s White House Black Market, JetBlue and SC Johnson.

Placecast is backed by Onset Ventures, Quatrex Capital, and Voyager Capital. Placecast was founded in 2005 and it has 30 employees. Placecast said it has more than 3 million active users in its ShopAlerts programs in the U.S. and Europe. Placecast has raised $13 million to date.

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Tags: geofencing, mobile marketing, push notifications

Companies: Onset Ventures, Placecast, Quatrex Capital, Voyager Capital

People: Alistair Goodman, Anne Bezancon

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