Things are getting contentious in the
emerging technologies space. Yahoo
followed up on its threat of suing Facebook (initially issued last month)
and has filed papers on patent infringement on a number of things including
social networking, customization, privacy, advertising and messaging. The
advertising bit is probably one of the more interesting ones, because there
were four alleged patent infringements, three of which are related to
"Method and system for optimum placement of advertisements on a
webpage" and one that is related to the "System and method to
determine the validity of an interaction on a network". Considering that
Facebook generates a ton of revenue off of their super-targeted mini ads, these
allegations could severely impact their advertising business.
In a statement, Facebook said,
"We're disappointed that Yahoo, a longtime business partner of Facebook
and a company that has substantially benefited from its association with
Facebook, has decided to resort to litigation. Once again, we learned of Yahoo's
decision simultaneously with the media. We will defend ourselves vigorously
against these puzzling actions."
So let me translate.
In a statement, Facebook said, "We
think that Yahoo is resorting to suing us because they are having issues
internally and are grasping at straws to revive their company by resorting to
petty litigation such as this to draw publicity to their cause and propel
themselves as a victim against the big bad Facebook. We would like the public
to disregard the embarrassing fiasco that they faced earlier this year when
they fired their CEO in the worst way possible and basically admitted that they
were in deep trouble in terms of strategy and vision for future products.
Instead, we would like to remind the public at this time that they used us to
drive up their click through volume by 300% since partnering with us, and that
we think it's ridiculous that they don't have the decency to tell us about
their crazy announcements ahead of time like everyone else in this industry.
Now that they have made Facebook angry, we will crush them under lawyers and
legal clauses. We spit on them. Thank you."
In other news, Nokia
also decided to axe its Mobile Financial Services unit. As one of the first
admissions that late-comers are not welcome in the fast-paced mobile payments
space, Yankee Group's senior analysts have commented that, "While the
rewards are potentially high for a well-timed mobile money initiative in
developing markets, as witnessed by the phenomenal success of M-Pesa in Kenya,
the time for new entrants may have passed and certainly some countries, such as
India where Nokia chose to place their interests, are already well served by
existing money services..... It may be that Nokia is simply cutting back to
core interests that are more central to its position as a handset manufacturer,
but its mobile money backpedalling goes to show that even a name as
internationally recognized as Nokia cannot immediately guarantee success in the
fiercely competitive mobile payment landscape."
Initially, the MFS unit was established
to manage their Nokia Money product that was launched in mid-2009 with a focus
on emerging economies. The service promised P2P transfers, basic transactions,
merchant/utility payments and prepaid SIM card top-ups (very, very similarly to
M-Pesa). Nokia introduced this service with Obopay, which is invested $70M in
early 2009 and things were looking good while they were forging partnerships
with India's Yes Bank and Union Bank, but the company struggled to expand past
the land of the great "I" (that's India for all the people not in the
know).
Oh yeah, and Paypal
is going to launch a competing dongle (in your face, Square!). This is
interesting because it goes in line with PayPal's disdain of the NFC hype. They
recently announced their pilot with over 2,000 Home Depots across the U.S.
where users can check out with PIN/mobile device or special PayPal card. I
actually think this is the right move for PayPal, as a company that was founded
in intangible payment/commerce services, it makes sense for them to balance
their portfolio by simultaneously developing more tangible solutions.
(Especially when all of their competitors are flocking to the NFC silver bullet.)
Oh PayPal, one day we will be together again.
No comments:
Post a Comment