Amazon announced Thursday that the Amazon Appstore is now truly cosmopolitan.

The app store is, as of this writing, available in nearly 200 countries.

This announcement is the latest in a series of global expansions, including the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, China and Japan. Amazon Appstore will come to Brazil in the coming months.

Continue Reading

Social media’s luster got scuffed up a tad today amidst a new report from Monetate.

The company, which promotes itself as a “customer experience engine that leverages big data to create personalized online experiences,” published its latest Ecommerce Quarterly (EQ1 2013) report.

This quarter’s report takes a deep look at social commerce trends. And the news isn’t all that good for social media.

According to the report’s findings, social media is lagging as direct traffic source to eCommerce websites and for online purchases, despite brand investment.

Continue Reading

Tabbedout has a mighty partner for its new mobile payments effort.

On Monday, Tabbedout confirmed its new partnership with Google to bring users Google Wallet as a payment source in the Tabbedout app for Android.

Tabbedout, if you’re not familiar, provides an application that makes payment of restaurant or bar tabs simple and secure. The platform is integrated with point-of-sale systems in over 10,000 locations nationwide.

Continue Reading

Aggressive is, indeed, an appropriate word to describe how one emerging power in the mobile payments space is expanding into retail.

Quickly becoming a favorite provider among entrepreneurs, independent contractors, and businesses of all shapes and sizes, PayAnywhere announced Monday that its professional grade mobile point of sale solution is more widely available now than ever.

This morning, PayAnywhere issued a press release touting a new partnership with D&H Distributing.

Continue Reading

After an exhaustive and protracted testing phase, the U.S. Department of Defense finally awarded security clearance to Apple’s iPhone and iPad on Friday.

In particular, the Defense Information Systems Agency confirmed the approval of the Apple iOS 6 Security Technical Implementation Guide (STIG).

Approval of the STIG means that government-issued iOS 6 mobile devices are approved for use when connecting to DOD networks within current mobility pilots or the future mobile device management framework.

Continue Reading

Developers were excited by no shortage of announcements made this week at Google I/O, not the least of which was the unveiling of the new Google Wallet Instant Buy Android API.

“Shopping for physical goods on mobile devices is a difficult experience for consumers,” Google says, “leading to 97% of mobile shoppers abandoning their shopping carts.”

As a result, Google is giving its U.S. developers the new Google Wallet Instant Buy Android API, which makes buying in native Android apps “fast and easy.”

Continue Reading

We’ve known for some time that it’s coming. But on Thursday, the app finally arrived.

Facebook has just rolled out a version of its app for Google Glass.

If you’re lucky enough to be among the early testers of Google Glass, the Facebook app is certainly poised to occupy some of your time this weekend.

Continue Reading