When Twitter founder Jack Dorsey first announced Square mobile payment system, I thought it was a brilliant idea – and it still is. Being able to accept credit card payments on the go, no matter where you are, with an iPhone/iPod/iPad – fantastic.

Square officially launched yesterday (on the iPad, initially) and the technology is already outdated. Square relies on the old fashioned ‘swipe and sign’ method of accepting credit card payments, which while still accepted in the US, is practically non-existent in the rest of the world. Most countries have either already switched to ‘chip and pin’, or are in the process of adopting this more secure method of accepting credit card payments. The US seems to be lagging behind – but I suspect it won’t be that way forever.

So what does this mean for Square? Does Jack have an ace up his sleeves, or is Square simply going to remain a US-only product, until America joins the rest of the world, with ‘chip and pin’ technology? As brilliantly designed as the Square app and device are – is there a plan for this business to survive in the long-run?

Between Dropbox/Google Docs, Spotify and Flickr, is there really any need for backups anymore?

Dropbox keeps all your files in the cloud, important documents and crap alike.
If you want to keep things 100% cloud based of course, there’s Google Documents – now that they allow uploading of any file type.

Spotify is my favourite app, music used to take up so much space on my macbook pro, now it’s all streamed directly from the cloud. If I know I’m going out of coverage, I can mark playlists for offline use. The libraries are vast, and once Spotify allows mp3 imports (which it will, soon), iTunes will be under a great threat.

Everyone’s familiar with Flickr. With programs like iPhoto you can upload all your photos and share them with your friends in a matter of clicks, or mark them as private for your own reference.

The best thing about all of these apps is that they’re not desktop exclusive – I have them all on my Google Nexus One and iPhone too.

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We’ve all been screwed by the big mobile phone networks at some point. Whether it be unsolicited charges, poor quality/coverage or just incompetent customer service. Well I say why bother with them? Don’t give them the satisfaction of a 18/24month contract – there’s no need to be tied in these days.

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Hey, I’m on a pesimistic vibe about mobile network providers tonight, why not roll with it?

During Kevin Holley‘s (co-inventor of SMS) presentation at #140conf London last year, I recall him mentioning that text messages are extremely over-priced. They use up so little bandwidth that the actual cost is practically negligible - which is probably why most networks are quick to bundle these up to entice you into their 18month contracts.

With free Internet access becoming more regularly available, is there even any need to be sending SMS messages? I’m not making a statement, that’s a genuine question.

We have Twitter, Facebook, BlackBerry Messenger, and cross-platform Push-supporting applications like WhatsApp for sending direct messages just as quickly as SMS. Not to forget Instant Messenger programs like GTalk, Skype, AIM, MSN etc. All free. Most of these services offer other benefits – like not having to know your friend’s phone number. We take address books for granted, but if you don’t happen to have your friend’s latest number stored – there’s no way of reaching them. Whereas you can hit them up on Twitter/Facebook/Gtalk/Skype wherever you are, whoever’s phone/Internet connection you’re using.

I think the most important aspect here, is that we don’t need our phones to send quick text messages anymore. We’re using these programs to communicate with our friends all the time on our computers – so when we’re out and about with our phones, it just becomes second nature to continue the conversation over those platforms.

It’s getting to a point now, where we’re pretty much always connected. We’re always online in some form or another. Forgetting for a moment our conventional PCs/Macs, we have our Smartphones, Netbooks, eReaders and Tablet computers with us where ever we go. Pretty much everything is either WiFi or 3G capable now.

It seems to me that we’re right on the verge of a tipping point. We’ll soon have blanket coverage throughout the whole of the developed world. I think now, the most important question is which technology will become predominant. They can’t all survive, surely?

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