BitCoinAndie:
1. I don't think new supercards are the way, at least right now - as it has been said we don't want to have to train people in new tech + they may be expensive hindering BTC market penetration.
Well, I may have been a bit hasty in writing that opinion. Since then I've taken a look at the vid that benjamindees has posted, and the technology is indeed impressive. If these cards and readers are adopted in the broader marketplace then repurposing them will indeed have been a great insight. The logic behind decisioning in this matter is simple. The S curves for the merchant and consumer adoption rates are not uniform. In this case we would be somewhat dependent upon merchant adoption rates as you'd want merchants in "closed" or "protected" markets to blend in with the "norm." More importantly, for distributed or open systems, it is far better to have a symbiotic relationship with the dominant design. I am a huge proponent of commensalism, (a class of relationship between two organisms where one organism benefits but the other is neutral-- with no ill effects or benefit) when designing alternative payment systems.
Best practice would suggest that the next step is to get a sense of the reaction to this technology. Is MC going to push it across their installed base? Do the biggest card issuers see an advantage in adopting this new technology, and if so, will they push the cycle time (meaning faster than the normal replacement rate of the cards already in the hands of their customers) What are the odds makers predicting (Gartner Group, Sullivan and Frost, etc.) in terms of adoption rates?
The above notwithstanding, I continue to believe that we must crack the code on mobile devices, as card usage will likely NEVER take root on most of this planet. Indeed, the average person throughout the Pacific Rim, Central and South America and Africa are already embracing "mobile banking." (The top 10 telcos are making a big push, Verizon is # 18 globally and the Gates Foundation has mounted a major offensive.) It can be difficult for most of us to appreciate just how large this market is (people not petro dollars) b/c we tend to travel the Epcot Center route when doing business within but particularly outside our western democracies. Of equally important consideration, since a good deal of the world's supply chains originate in these markets, overlooking them would be a fatal error over the long run.
Using Greece as an example, food and beverage distributors who can link into their regional supply chains (Europe) as well as local retail distribution would probably make a lot of sense [EDIT: As a third market].
I think I kinda mentioned it in my second market ("businessmen"), but yes definitely a good way to go.
I think a "third generation" market would be something like my grandma using it.
Guess I misunderstood, and assumed that the "businesses" in your outline are elements of markets by "Geography." I'd suggest that we separate Businesses from Geographies, making "Grandma" 4th generation.
Yes, there will be significant overlap between these two markets, (like a Rubix cube) however, both categories are sufficiently large and complex that breaking them into two will make them easier to understand and our work less prone to error. I would further argue that one tends to think of countries from the bottom up (conditions on the ground) and Industries regionally and ultimately Globally, or top down. Of course, all change resides in the individual and thus is local by definition. So designs derived in think tanks, no matter how diverse and multicultural, will be best customized and disseminated by actual users under their actual market conditions.
