billing

Cellphone Users to Get Billing Alerts Under New Voluntary Standards

Amy Schatz, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in Mobile on October 17, 2011 at 5:30 am PT

Wireless-phone customers will begin receiving real-time alerts next year if they are about to go over their monthly voice, data or text-message limits under new voluntary industry standards set to be announced on Monday.

New AT&T Customers to Face Tough Choice on Text Messages

Ina Fried in Mobile on August 18, 2011 at 8:50 am PT

The wireless carrier is doing away with its bundled plans, forcing new customers to either pay $20 a month for unlimited texting or a hefty 20 cents per message. Current customers, however, can keep their bundled plans.

Here Come the Apps: Google's In-App Billing for Android Goes Live

Tricia Duryee in Commerce on March 29, 2011 at 6:47 pm PT

Google turned on in-app billing in the Android Market today, which opens up a new monetization method that will make it more competitive against Apple’s iOS.

News Byte

Boku Signs Direct Billing Relationship for Physical Goods with Telefonica

Tricia Duryee in Commerce on March 23, 2011 at 10:21 am PT

Boku, a mobile payments provider, said it has signed a direct carrier billing relationship with Telefónica’s O2 in Germany. That means that O2 customers can charge virtual, digital and physical goods ranging from .09 Euros to 30 Euros to their carrier bill by entering their phone number into an app or other form. In general, the trend has been for carriers to increasingly lower the fees they charge for physical goods to make charging lower margin goods to the carrier bill more feasible. Boku says it’s connected to 230 operators in 65 countries, although not all carriers support physical payments.

Zong Extends Mobile Payments to Game Consoles and More

Tricia Duryee in Commerce on March 17, 2011 at 7:00 am PT

Zong, one of the many startups trying to address carrier billing as a viable payment option for digital goods, is expanding its platform to other technologies, including game consoles.

BilltoMobile Inks Deals With Three of the Four Major U.S. Carriers to Enable Mobile Payments

Tricia Duryee in Commerce on February 18, 2011 at 5:00 am PT

BilltoMobile has secured a deal with Sprint to enable consumers to make purchases using their mobile phones.

Bubbly "Voice Twitter" Service Launches in the Philippines

Liz Gannes in Social on February 9, 2011 at 10:53 pm PT

I last wrote about Bubble Motion, provider of the Bubbly mobile messaging service, exactly a year ago. At the time, the company had 150,000 users. Today, it has more than seven million.

Time Inc. Gets the Tablet Magazine Subscriptions It Wants–With HP

Peter Kafka in Media on February 9, 2011 at 9:35 am PT

Time Inc., which has been unable to come to terms with Apple over subscriptions for digitized magazines, has found a company it can work with.

Apple to Crack Down on Newspaper, Magazine App Payments

Russell Adams, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on February 2, 2011 at 1:29 pm PT

Developers of magazine and newspaper apps have received notice from Apple Inc. that beginning on March 31, any app that does not take payments through its iTunes store will be rejected.

Rupert Murdoch’s Daily for iPad Debuts Feb. 2

John Paczkowski in News on January 27, 2011 at 10:03 am PT

The Daily, the iPad newspaper News Corp. was supposed to unveil a few weeks ago, has a new launch date and a new venue for its debut: Feb. 2 at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.