Twitter will be offer more targeting options for advertisers on mobile, reports TechCrunch. A few week’s ago, CEO Dick Costolo announced that Twitter would be bringing Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts to mobile. At the time, these ‘Promoted Products’ were available only to a small number of users, from the brands they follow.

Today, the company announced a broader roll out of the service, allowing brands to target users (even those who don’t follow the them) by interest, location, and device. Promoted Tweets will appear on a user’s timeline, and also on search. On the timeline, the Promoted Tweet will fall off the page, as new tweets roll in. On search, the tweet will remain at the top of the page until “swiped” off. 

Obviously, improved targeting is good news for advertisers. Twitter has reported high engagement on Web ads, and projects similar engagement on mobile. I, for one, will be putting these targeted mobile ads to the test when my company rolls out a new product for iOS in the coming weeks.

PayPal, hoping to get more small merchants to use its payment system, will roll out a mobile credit card swiping device. The device (a blue triangle that plugs into the headphone jack) will be slightly cheaper than a similar product produced by Square. PayPal will charge merchants 2.7% per transaction, compared to the 2.75% Square charges.



Perhaps PayPal is on to something with this ‘Triangle’ — less sides, lower costs. My money is on whoever can develop the ‘Line.’

Square, the mobile payment startup created by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, will now allow customers who frequent businesses using the Square card reader to pay with just their names.

The Square Card Case — a mobile loyalty card holder — will turns the Square application into a complete mobile payment solution. Businesses using the Square Register will have the user on file and can select him or her from the point-of-sale screen to charge the transaction to the user’s “tab.” The purchaser will be automatically billed (sans wallet), and a receipt will be stored on the loyalty card for that location.

Each individual card in the case will also give the user access to a venue’s entire menu, which is updated in real time, and highlights the most popular products in the store, based on sales.

 Click here for a neat interactive demo of the new Card Case.

The CW Television network has just signed an exclusive deal with the mobile shopping application, Shopkick. The app rewards more than 1.5 million members for walking into a store and scanning product barcodes.

Mobile CW viewers will now be prompted to open the application on their Android or iPhones before a commercial airs. The application will then recognize the spot, using the device’s internal microphone, and deliver instant rewards to the viewer that drive users into the stores.

Shopping applications like Shopkick will likely play an important role in the future of mobile viewing, as brands and content distributors, alike, struggle to find innovative ways to get users to engage with ads. 

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