Here are our top five tweets from the week that was. Keep tweeting, and we may feature you next Friday.
@noahelkin: There you have it, direct form Phil Schiller: “It’s not clear that NFC is the solution to any current problem” dthin.gs/SdAodh
Apple’s big iPhone 5 reveal turned out to be kind of a dud – it’s faster and sleeker, but it doesn’t do much else. But at least it settled the great iPhone NFC debate, and as All Things D’s Noah Elkin highlights, Apple isn’t ready to commit to NFC as a long term payments option. If only some payments site had the wisdom to predict a lack of NFC functionality weeks ago. Oh, wait. Our Karen Webster did. Sorry we’re not sorry for the humblebrag.
@JDeezyNYC: why is Mark Zuckerberg trending right now? Did he do something stupid again?
No worries, Joel, there were no gaffs for Facebook’s CEO this week. Zuckerberg made headlines for speaking publically for the first time since Facebook’s disastrous May IPO at Tech Crunch Disrupt SF, and gave some interesting answers about the future of Facebook’s ad strategy. Zuckerberg also touched on Facebook’s capacity as a search engine, his company’s moral and why he sees no Facebook phone in the future. We covered the story on Wednesday.
@ajwalsh08: @pymnts RT @WSJ: U.S. consumers load $83.3B onto prepaid cards n ’11, up 34% ovr ’10 says payments-industry research grp. on.wsj.com/RRhUog
Former PYMNTS.com editor and current Birmingham News econ reporter Alex Walsh alerts us to this great Wall Street Journal piece about prepaid cards, and their rapid growth in the industry. According to the WSJ, U.S. consumers spent $83.3 billion in prepaid cards last year – 33 percent more than in 2010 and nearly twice as much as in 2009. With mobile wallet wars escalating as well, it’s not hard to envision prepaid continuing to thrive in the coming months. Thanks for keeping us in mind, Alex!
@billbarhydt: Bitcoin and other public/private key schemes create messy problems for 5th amendment. Forbes.com/sites/jonmaton…
Boom Financial CEO Bill Barhydt tweeted a link to this Forbes story sure to catch the attention of anyone with an interest in Bitcoin or other type of virtual currency. We cover how Bitcoin may affect the payments industry all the time, but this article brings up some interesting possible conflicts with key disclosure laws and the Fifth Amendment. Given all the security trouble Bitcoin had last week, it’s a timely topic.
@EyeLock_1: @DavidOlatilo @pymnts Great move locking in Citibank so they don’t go rogue on the other banks and cut an Apple deal eg. Google Wallet
This tweet was in response to our news brief about JP Morgan, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citigroup possibly planning a money transfer merger. If what Jeff suspects is true, some of the payments industry’s biggest players could be getting innovative when it comes to positioning themselves for future mobile payments endeavors.
Have a good weekend, and happy tweeting!
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