Major U.S. carriers T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T have announced today the launch of Isis, a joint venture that will give customers a chance to pay for services and products via their phones.
The payment network will use Discover Financial Services (DFS).
“This is an unprecedented partnership, one that’s necessary,” says Michael Abbott, who will run the venture.
The initiative is open and Abbot says that Barclays’ Barclaycard will be the first issuer.
“Barclaycard will have the first mover advantage as an issuer of multiple mobile payment products. It gives us great access to [the telcos'] 200 million customer base,” added Amer Sajed, CEO of Barclaycard US.
Visa and Mastercard are not expected to sign up for the venture, however, as both are starting their own systems.
Result for: customer base
It looks like Hulu, the streaming video service owned by NBC Universal, News Corp & Disney is preparing to become a publicly traded company. The New York Times is reporting unnamed sources indicated an IPO (Initial Public Offering) could happen as early as this fall.
Assuming they can convince potential investors their new subscription service, Hulu Plus, can be profitable, there’s still another hurdle to overcome. Hulu’s management, led by ex-Amazon.com executive Jason Kilar, have been proponents of getting Hulu playing on every screen possible. But some of Kilar’s better decisions have been undermined by Hulu’s owners.
It’s quite possible the insider information given to Times reporters was intended to see how potential investors respond. An IPO may wait if their reaction isn’t positive.
But assuming they do go public eventually, Kilar and his team will need less oversight from Hulu’s content providers. Those providers have been resistant to the idea of Hulu’s free (ad supported) content making its way to TV screens through devices like media center PCs and game consoles.
Looking at it strictly from Hulu’s point of view, this seems like a big barrier to attracting subscribers for Hulu Plus. The problem is Hulu’s content owners are trying to solve the wrong problem.
The question isn’t whether some type of free internet distribution will compete with traditional television services. The competition, both licensed and unauthorized, is already there and the market isn’t going away just because they don’t cater to it.
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Result for: customer base
In April, AOL sold one of the pioneers of instant messaging, ICQ, to Digital Sky Technologies Limited (DST) for $187.5 million USD.
Today, AOL has completed that sale, with Tim Armstrong, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of AOL saying the company will use the proceeds to either buy media properties or hoard the cash for emergencies.
Despite losing popularity in the United States to other services such as MSN Messenger and AIM, ICQ remains the most popular IM service in Russia and other smaller international markets.
“The acquisition of ICQ is a strategic enhancement of our business in Russia and Eastern Europe. ICQ’s long-standing brand name and its sizeable loyal customer base together represent a very attractive opportunity to further strengthen our position in the region,” added Yuri Milner, Chief Executive Officer of DST.
ICQ was created in 1996 by Mirabilis of Israel, and AOL purchased the parent company in 1998.
Reads the SEC notice: As previously announced, on April 28, 2010, AOL Inc., (the “Company”) entered into a Securities Purchase Agreement (the “Agreement”) with Digital Sky Technologies Limited, a British Virgin Islands company (“Digital Sky”), for the sale of the Company’s ICQ operations (“ICQ”).
