Starbucks’ $25 million investment in and deployment of Square for mobile payments, signed Tuesday by Square CEO Jack Dorsey and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, will help spur adoption of mobile commerce in the US, with a halo effect that will be felt beyond.

Square will begin processing all credit and debit card transactions at Starbucks’ nearly 7,000 company-owned shops in the United States this fall via Pay With Square, and soon, customers will order their café du jour and charge it to their credit card just by saying their name. 

“Starbucks is one of the largest organizations in the world, taking technology like Square — simple, fast and focused on customer experience — and bringing it to a massive scale,” commented Dorsey to the New York Times.

The Twitter co-founder and executive chairman (naturally) tweeted the whole deal, sharing the big news late Tuesday night in New York and subsequently posting photos of Adam Brotman, Starbucks' chief digital officer, using Square (and tipping 30%) in a NYC taxi; the deal-signing with Schultz taken Tuesday night in New York; and a twitpic on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday morning.

It's a huge week for Square: it's also receiving some cross-promotional love from Apple. Check out the new TV commercial for the iPad (being swiped as the voiceover says "make a sale") that debuted Tuesday night, below.Continue reading...

All Nippon Airways triggers security jitters with near-overturn.

AOL kills off Seed news service.

Apple's iPhone 5 rumored to feature deep Twitter integration, as Twitter's valuation soars and Blockbuster CMO falls in love with Twitter.

Friendly's ice cream chain prepares to file for bankruptcy protection.

Gamestop and Coke partner on largest Scvngr game to date.

Google shakes up web analytics with $150K paid service.

Microsoft is adding Comcast and Verizon pay TV to Xbox Live.

Netflix stock tumbles to new low.

RIM denies it's killing the BlackBerry PlayBook.Continue reading...

The Googleplex is buzzing, as Google Ventures, the company’s two-year-old independent venture capital arm is doubling its start-up investment budget to $200 million, doubling it office space, and adding new team members.

Its latest: Laura Melahn, Google Ventures' new head of marketing, whose hiring is a sign that Google is ready to get serious about promoting its VC activities.

With three major successes so far — Ngmoco, acquired by Japanese gaming company, DeNA, for around $400 million; HomeAway, went public in June; and Silver Spring Networks, a smart-grid company, which filed for an IPO — the search behemoth is searching for the next Zynga or Facebook.Continue reading...

In yet another example of how big brands are using social media in creative ways for Black Friday, Coca-Cola is teaming with mobile location-based gaming app SCVNGR — text-speak for "scavenger," as in hunt.Continue reading...

Gaps in Gap Facebook Offer

Last Friday’s Facebook offer of 10,000 free pairs of jeans from Gap revealed the holes in the Places spaces. The FB promotion read: “Check-in at any Men’s & Women’s Gap using Facebook Places and you could win. Just show any Gap employee your check-in and you could score a free pair. If you’re too late don’t worry, we’ll let you shop with 40% off any regularly priced item.”  

So scores of people who were not at a Gap location went to FB and typed in: “Checking-in.”

As Matthew Ingram put it on gigaom.com: “The reality is that, in the short term at least, both retailers and services like Facebook and Foursquare are going to have to do a lot of educating and hand-holding for users, because most people have no idea what they are talking about when they say things like 'location sharing' or 'check in.'”

Queen “likes” Facebook

From across the pond comes news of the Queen – again – showing us what it looks like when Royalty goes full-on digital. Already a mobile phone owner, with a private email address, at 84 years of age, she just launched a Facebook page called "The British Monarchy."

The Queen already has a Flickr account replete with 600 photographs; a Royal Twitter account was launched in 2009; and a YouTube Royal Channel went live in 2007.Continue reading...