Jeremy Mancini

Great contribution Jeremy. This is a goldmine of topics to explore when we talk to Evan tomorrow night. Knowing this, are you/how can you change your behavior when it comes to the permissions you “accept” on your devices?

This information is very enlightening, Jeremy. In response to Greg’s comment, I don’t know that people will change their behavior even if they did know all this information. If 90% of consumers accept legal terms without ever reading them and “that people would rather accept possible future consequences by clicking ‘I agree’, in exchange for access to the service they are seeking” (1). I think the more technology generations grow up with the less cautious we become and the less likely people will be to care. If 97% of adults age 18-24 avoid reading long lists of conditions (1) then it feels like we’re becoming numb to it. Personally, I’m cautious downloading apps. When the FaceApp recently went viral I decided to not download the app because their terms and conditions felt a little…invasive. But a ton of other people did download it so it just goes to show, people will blindly accept the terms and conditions as long as it’s convenient for them to do so.

References:
1. https://www.lawyer-monthly.com/2018/08/do-you-accept-the-terms-conditions-or-do-they-need-to-change/

Hi Jeremy, great post! A few months ago my wife introduced me to a similar app, called Ritual. It doesn’t quite have the name recognition of Starbucks but in general, it offers some of the same features that you are describing for smaller more local delis, bakeries, and bodegas. The app uses your geolocation to notify you of what surrounding restaurants are around you, or show you if some of your go-to restaurants are open. This way if you are riding the train, you can order your morning bagel and coffee 10 minutes beforehand, so by the time you make it to the deli, the food is ready for pick up, already paid for, and you just pick it up and go! I bring this up, because there are some cool features, that I think could improve the Starbucks app.

First and foremost, Ritual is a social app. What do I mean by that? Much like when Uber was first released it has a strong referral program, where current members can share the app directly with someone else and both the referrer and the referral earn $10 to spend on any restaurant that has Ritual. If you download the app right now, you could use my code CLIFF30203, and earn $10 bucks (that goes for anyone else who reads this post!). From your mobile phone, it’s even easier, I simply go to my profile, and I can click the share with a friend button, and it pulls up my text message apps, so I can just quickly and easily provide them with a link to download the app.

The other way it is social is that it gives the user the ability to add their company where they work to their profile which gives them the piggyback ability. Through the Piggyback feature, “Users get a notification when their colleagues are ordering from somewhere, and they can then tack their own order onto that one.” (1) Any of the users on the Piggyback order can pick up the order, and Ritual incentivizes doing that through a points system. 10,000 points gives you $10 dollars, and the app incentivizes you add data through the point system using gamification to add to value proposition.

When I think of Starbucks, I think of a social gathering place. People have meetings there, perform interviews, and even study in them. I also think of coffee runs in an office setting. I could completely see them adding the Piggyback feature in the near future and I think the ability to share the app on a referral basis would be a great extension of the social aspect of the Starbucks brand. Since you are familiar with the Starbucks app, do you think there is any way to gamify it?

References
(1) https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/16/17129684/ritual-app-security-oversight-government

Starbucks is really the gold standard in QSR app experiences, Jeremy. Why do you think there’s been so many imitators, but no real threats to the crown?

Most of the apps in the QSR space function as apps to have apps. Is there any insight into their customers that differentiates Starbucks’ app experience? Or is it just that they were first to market?

Great examples, Jeremy! I must say that I’m surprised by the “high-end” feel that the examples images for Adidas portray. I find that very interesting for a “sneaker” company. I like how you tackled the idea of sharing platform optimized content as you stated, Facebook and Instagram serve two different purposes. One thing I’m hoping to look further into for my post is why the need to have a Facebook page when activating an Instagram business account. I’m sure it has something to do with the fact that Facebook owns Instagram, but I’m eager to learn more. Great, thought-provoking post.

Ah, social media and narcissism, something that comes up all too often! We’re all guilty of it at some point – posting that selfie where you’re feelin’ real cute, or posting an accomplishment, etc – it’s our way of telling the world “look, I’m doing great! really!” In your case, it sounds like you use it to motivate yourself and keep yourself accountable, which is awesome! However, do you ever find yourself comparing yourself to others?

https://blog.allpsych.com/the-dangers-of-comparing-yourself-to-others-on-social-media/ — an interesting thing to think about – does all of this social media “narcissism” actually hurt more than it helps?

Great post Jeremy! Thanks for contributing.

Do you have any concerns about a single company having access to so much information about you? What about your entire life being both anchored to a device while also (in theory) being accessible to everything connected to that device?

It’s interesting you cited security as a draw as security has been my main hesitation to using a Pay solution (I’ve started using Google Pay more often of late).

This is a great post, Jeremy. My post on Venmo is very similar to this in the reasoning behind using a mobile payment service. The convenience is the biggest upside to using a service such as Apple Pay and/or Venmo. I think that the security of using your phone or watch to make payments is a set back for most people and one that Apple will need to navigate with education. It took me a while to join the Venmo bandwagon so it make take some time for me to get into Apple Pay, but with the ease of use, especially for someone who has all Apple products, is almost inevitable that I will begin to use this service soon,

As someone who doesn’t use Apple Pay it was interesting to read your interaction with it Jeremy. Since I work in retail I’ve seen just how fast this can make checkout so I am sure it is a convenience thing. My company, Bath & Body Works, just added mobile pay to our registers back in July but at the same time took away the ability for our customers to pay with checks. This was something that employees of the company were excited about because taking checks has always been a hassle. The customer has to fill it out, we need a valid ID to fill out prompts for information on the register, and then we have to feed it into our register to process it. The entire process can take upwards of 5 minutes and when you have a long line of customers impatiently waiting this can be super frustrating. Not to mention, almost 75% of the people who tend to pay with checks were usually over the age of 55-60 (at least in my store).

Millennials are 16x more likely to use mobile pay than boomers but 80% of Millennials still use cash. I can’t help but think that with mobile pay as an option more and more stores will adapt their payment forms to also get rid of checks. I don’t think that this means the end of checks all together though. As I recall, we read last fall a case study about the Deluxe check company and that more people are using checks to write bigger amounts. Instead mobile phone pay just seems like another disruption.

https://www.npr.org/2016/03/03/468890515/is-it-time-to-write-off-checks

Are Personal Checks Still Necessary?

Millennials Are Still Using Checks – Here’s Why

Posting on behalf of Matt B. who is getting a 404 error when he tries to post. If anyone else is having a similar issue, please let me know ASAP.

Matt B:

Jeremy, I love Apple Pay and I use it every opportunity I can. It is so much more convenient. I’m glad you brought up the Apple Card. I got mine about a month ago and it is not the typical Apple experience. I know they are still working out the kinks, but I really thought they would have put more effort into integrating it.. I do like how it keeps track of your purchases by category; food, services, etc. But the frustrating thing is how it keeps the balance. I was using my card for some work related items so the balance went up quickly. Even though I was paying it off right away, my available balance kept dropping. So I called them and they told me it could take 7-10 days to clear. Now this is tied to my bank account, so I’m unsure why so much lag time to clear. To me, I thought that would be one of the core benefits; real time transactions. I hope they work the issues out because it’s difficult at any one time to know what your actual available balance is. I still think it was a smart on their part, because as you stated it is another way to increase the adoption of Apple Pay. I think Apple would like to have dominance over how people pay for things and maybe the Apple Card is part of that strategy. Though, I think increasingly payments will be made via mobile or wearables. Do you think that the Apple Card is more of a short-term solution? Just to fill an existing void before mobile takes over?