Smart Credit Cards May Slow Adoption Of Mobile Payments

Mobile Insights is a daily newsletter from BI Intelligence delivered first thing every morning exclusively to BI Intelligence subscribers. Sign up for a free trial of BI Intelligence today.

---

What Coin And Google Wallet Card Mean For The Rest Of The Payments Industry (Washington Post)
Last week, a payments startup called Coin surfaced and began taking orders for its new payments product - a slim, all-in-one credit card. Users can store all their credit, debit, and gift card info on the Coin card, and do away with the need to carry around multiple cards.

This week, Google has launched a card that consumers can link to their Google Wallet account and balance and use in retail outlets.

While Google's smart card is limited in its capabilities, it is free for Google Wallet account holders. Coin, on the other hand, costs $50 currently and will cost $100 down the line.

From a consumer standpoint, the interest is there. Coin hit its crowdfunding goal in 40 minutes and had to open up more pre-order spots. This, despite Coin garnering heavy criticism from the tech world and concern from anti-fraud professionals.

It's obvious that consumer familiarity with cards as a payments system is what's driving demand for these smart cards, not true consumer interest in adopting an innovative mobile-based payments method. Technologically, these smart cards seem like a bit of a step backwards. For example, Coin's companion phone app mainly serves to alert users if they have forgotten their Coin card somewhere. Consumers adoption of new payments technologies like NFC and payments apps may suffer if these cards become popular. Read >

In other news...

App.net is looking to best Twitter by offering mobile users an all-in-one app with alerts for news, podcasts, sports, or RSS feeds, all without ads. After about a year, it is unclear how many consumers are actually in the App.net network. (The Verge)

EchoNest, the company that provides the technology and algorithms that power music services like Rdio and Clear Channel's iHeartRadio, is looking to mold its music personalization technology into an ad targeting platform. (TechCrunch)

The U.S. is leaning toward allowing talking and text from a mobile device during flights. Here's everything you need to know about how those rules will work. (Washington Post)

Samsung has lost in court and will owe Apple about $290 million in damages for patent infringement. (CNet)

China's second-richest person is Robin Li, co-founder and CEO of one of China's largest Internet services company Baidu. Last July, Robin spearheaded the acquisition of a $800 million mobile app store, 91 Wireless Websoft. Since then, Baidu's stock has soared thanks to this new push toward mobile. (Quartz)

Here's a deeper look at how Plain Vanilla Games created the wildly popular new quiz game app, Quiz Up. The app has brought in 1.5 million users since its launch two weeks ago. (TechCrunch)