Public (non-existing) mobile services, mobile commerce and mobile people

Recent finished small survey we did got me to do some research. Perhaps the day has been just one of those bits and pieces kind of day which are sometimes nice to have as provides also possibility just to browse around, wonder, sometimes even wander, letting brain to rest and work at the same time. Because of the results of done survey, I started to look around what’s done and coming up in area of so called mobile commerce.

One of the reasons was many contacts and discussions lately with clients and prospects about setting up mobile internet services, and not only for distributing information but also monetize them by selling companies’ products and services via mobile phones. This research I was doing did lead me into one interesting article about Government of Arkansas (yep, that state in USA) mobile services, especially about possibilities to pay for different state’s and government’s services via mobile (smart)phone. This specific service is nowadays the most popular service of the whole Arkansas’ Government’s mobile services!

Well, that’s good news, especially for the industry, as shows that public sector is not only sitting and waiting things to pass or happen, acting only when forced. Or, actually, is it so? Example, in Finland there’s lots of progress going on to provide different kind of public services online, from dentist time bookings to car registration information services etc. And on the mobile internet side there’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland’s old fashionedly named mobile service for travellers, wap.formin.fi (well, have chatted with them few times and seems that implementing handset recognization for easier access is not their highest priority to develop those mobile services..). Then there’s.. well.. just a sec.. well.. oh yes, there must be other public mobile services in Finland.. or in Europe.. eh.. well.. them are a bit hard to find, I must admit as there must be.. at least some.. somewhere.. anybody can help me here, please?.. just wondering a bit what means those words usability and accessibility, especially latter one.. it did mean larger fonts or screen readers and other nice things for disabled but shouldn’t accessibility mean nowadays freedom to move of ordinary people, citizens?

Oh, I almost forget that my original thought, mobile commerce. Sorry. Basically having mobile commerce site means simply publishing content, like texts and pictures and so on. Only challenge is collect payments (unless using accounts and invoicing) but that’s not magic as haven’t payments for the goods taken care on the web for years now? Ofcourse we can integrate different payment methods as part of our solutions but sometimes it’s best to co-operate, with companies like paythru, which help to set up payment possibilities more faster and easier, when needed. This co-operation allows us to provide fast and cost effective possibilities for our clients to start selling products and services via mobile phones, from pizzas and admission tickets to games and what ever company wants to sell. And consumers are out there, literally..