On Friday, Orange launched their contactless payment system, Quick Tap, in conjunction with Barclaycard, on the Samsung Tocco Lite handset.

There are at least ten other distinct brands involved in Orange’s leap into new territory. Nine are working together:

• Orange, and Quick Tap’s leading partner, Barclaycard
• the providers of the handset technology, Samsung, and
• at least six retail brands supporting the initiative by taking payments via the new contactless system

In Orange here’s a brand, driven by developments in technology, assuming a new role as banking provider – virtually, as far as consumers care.

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If the deal goes ahead, it’ll be Microsoft’s biggest ever acquisition.  A more skeptical write-up in the Guardian has analysts apparently

“shocked” at what they think is a “substantial overpayment for the company”, but it’s not surprising to hear Microsoft may be enthusiastic about committing to Skype.

As Google Apps and a throng of popular cloud computing productivity services grow their presence and market share Microsoft is wise to be looking for a solid technology with which to entrench:  Skype is the dominant player in its space, with nearly as many registered users as Facebook.

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The UK Government is hoping to crowd source ideas for policy and cost-cutting through Facebook.

Cameron and Zuckerberg discuss the initiative in this video (warning; not for the squeamish)

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You’ve probably heard about the ‘Life in a Day’ project.

Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland, Touching the Void and One Day in September) is the high profile director and Ridley Scott the higher profile producer, who together will be boiling down what promises to be a huge volume of submitted video content into an “experimental documentary film”. An interesting editing challenge for sure.

Most coverage has headlined YouTube, Macdonald and Scott, but… there’s a brand sponsor in there too : LG.

“LG believes in enriching people’s lives through technology and saw complementary objectives in the Life in a Day project,” says Dermot J. M. Boden, Chief Marketing Officer at LG Electronics (quoted on LG’s UK blog).

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There’s  an interesting article in Adage today: ‘On-the-Fly Advertising Swiftly Becoming More Commonplace…’

‘On-the-Fly Advertising Swiftly Becoming

More Commonplace. Social-Media, Willingness by Marketers and Agencies to Make Quick Changes Boost Adland’s Real-Time Approach.’

Here’s an excerpt: ‘in a growing number of cases even the biggest marketers in the world, such as Procter & Gamble Co. and Unilever, are adjusting creative and media plans on the fly within days, weeks or even hours based on changing events or the shifting tides of social-media feedback.’

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