Following on from Matthew's safety theme, I though I would share with you a new text message-based initiative that taxis in London have launched recently. It is designed to make taxi journeys both more enjoyable and safer for customers, and is available on either a pay as you go or monthly service. The new service is called SaferTaxi and it provides user ratings and feedback on customers' journey experiences through its SMS service - the idea being that users send a text message with the taxi's license plate number to SaferTaxi. They will then receive instant feedback on the taxi driver and details of any reported problems before they start their journey. Once they arrive at their destination they are encouraged to leave their own feedback on the drive and the taxi ride. The SaferTaxi service also offers a DoubleSafety service which lets the passenger send a text message to confirm that they have arrived safe and well at their destination. If after an hour they fail to send a confirmation text message to SaferTaxi a call is made to whoever the users has chosen as their emergency contact, be it a friend or family.

//Following on from Matthew's safety theme, I though I would share with you a new text message-based initiative that taxis in London have launched recen...

Although they are still nearly two years away, the hype around the 2012 Summer Olympics just seems to grow bigger and bigger - especially here in London. And one of the gripes that many Londoners have is that most of the tickets for the Olympic events will be bought up by big corporate organisations, leaving ordinary sports fans out in the cold. To make matters worse, many of the corporate ticket holders can't be bothered to even attend the events - as witness by the rows of empty seats at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and the World Cup in South Africa this summer. Thankfully, those organising the London Olympics are considering a way to get round the problem of empty seats. They may introduce a mobile messaging system which would see tickets passed on to ordinary sports fans via a text message. The proposal would pass on tickets to people in and around the Olympic Park via a text message if the ticket holder is more than 45 minutes late to an event. To participate in the ticket recycling SMS campaign sports fans would need to sign up to receive notices of spare tickets from no shows and early leavers. Olympic organisers would make use of location-based mobile messaging to send a text to the fans in or around the Olympic venues offering them these tickets.

//Although they are still nearly two years away, the hype around the 2012 Summer Olympics just seems to grow bigger and bigger - especially here in Lond...

Retail businesses in the US are pushing ahead of the rest of the world with their innovative approach to opt-in location-based mobile marketing. Now large well-known retail brands can extend their mobile campaigns to 60% of all US consumers following the development of a strategic partnership between Placecast and Location Labs. Both firms have been chipping away at the difficulties presented by location-based mobile marketing in recent years. In one corner there is Placecast, which offers a geofenced mobile marketing system called ShopAlerts. This is designed to let retailers send promotional mobile campaign messages (such as an SMS alert) to customers when they enter digitally zoned areas. Location Labs, in the other corner, has extensive carrier relationships and its Universal Location API. Through the tie-up between the two firms, ShopAlerts will now be able to reach both ordinary mobile phone users and smartphones, with messages sent via SMS, email or a social network website. This location-based mobile service has the potential to reach a massive 180 million US consumers! But what's really special about the system is how it can work to offer not just discount vouchers when a customer is near a store, but it can reach opt-in users in other geofenced areas to send them a personalised SMS messaged based on their interests. Plus, to avoid information overload no more that three messages per week will be sent and consumers can opt-out at anytime. The North Face has been one of the first retailers to take advantage this extension of ShopAlerts capabilities, helping it to extend the reach of its mobile campaign dramatically. As well as creating digitally zoned areas near its stores, The North Face has geofenced hiking trails, State and National parks and other areas popular with its customer-base.

//Retail businesses in the US are pushing ahead of the rest of the world with their innovative approach to opt-in location-based mobile marketing. Now l...

Once again online banking has been hit by cyber criminals using the Trojan virus. The latest attack has been targeting customers at a leading UK bank and has been dubbed the Trojan Veus v3. It is thought that the virus has affected thousands of personal banking accounts siphoning off hundreds of thousands of pounds. It works by sitting quietly on the infected machine until the owner logs on to their online bank account. It then copies the login information and banking details, as well as transferring nearly all of the infected person's bank account to a third party. But the problems don’t stop there. This new virus is particularly devious. Not only does it steal your money, but it creates false web pages as well. When the owner of the infected machine next logs on their bank balance looks fine and they don’t realise that there is a problem. Unfortunately, this version of the Trojan virus cannot be detected by current anti-malware software, so for the moment online banking customers are helpless to prevent infection.

//Once again online banking has been hit by cyber criminals using the Trojan virus. The latest attack has been targeting customers at a leading UK bank ...