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The Perspective  
Your mobile device - the new boarding pass? By Tim Burke
17 Dec 2007 Tim Burke, CEO of Electronic Art, regularly blogs about self-service on his company's Web site. The following column first appeared on that site here.
A recent NPR story talked about the use of a cell phone as an airplane boarding pass. Essentially, a message is sent to a passenger’s phone with a two-dimensional bar code, which serves as his boarding pass information. The ticket agent then scans the screen just as he would a paper boarding pass.
The use of a cell phone as a means of identification has big potential in the future. Imagine a kiosk or interactive digital sign being able to scan and recognize you by a bar code you were sent via e-mail. Or it may be able to recognize you via Bluetooth or similar technology. Imagine a kiosk that allows you to sign up for a program or service, receive a code via e-mail or SMS within moments and interact with the kiosk or purchase your product without cash or credit cards. This technology has a lot of potential uses and it is just waiting for companies to adopt it in an engaging way that provides real value to the consumer.
I recently became aware of a pay-by-phone service called MocaPay, which allows you to sign up for an account online and add cash to your account from your credit or debit card. You can then go to any merchant that accepts MocaPay and purchase with your phone. It works like this: You send an SMS to MocaPay with your PIN number, and it responds with a code number that is good for 15 minutes. You give the code to the merchant and walk away with your product. Your account is debited once you have used the code. The service doesn't cost you anything to use; the costs are charged to the merchant at a rate similar to a credit card transaction. Could this be the new Visa?
This young company is primarily targeting the early adopters who already embrace cell phones and SMS messaging. They are growing in U.S. cities with large college campuses, where this target market is ripe. They get the merchants and universities to sign up to allow this audience to purchase with their phones.
All great stuff, great ideas. Now we need customers and deployers to figure out when it's appropriate to integrate these tools for their projects. Could this be you?
©2008 NetWorld Alliance LLC. All rights reserved.
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