This Google Wallet phenomenon is pretty amazing. Though with the starbucks card app kind of leading the way, the concept of using your phone in lieu of pulling out your wallet, is not a new one. Still, this concept is most likely the next step in the adventures of our ever-evolving smartphones. 

My quick take? 

The Good = The obvious. Convenient, easy, and almost always on hand. 

After the recent earthquake in DC, a friend of mine tweeted, “Dear Self - in the future, please also grab your purse along with the phone. The phone is not the most important thing #dcearthquake”

This concept of leaving one for the other might become more common as our phones become more and more ubiquitous in our daily lives. 

The Bad = Lost and stolen phones. Family and friends of mine have had their phones stolen from right out of their purses and off their tables. The resale value of smartphones is pretty darn high and if you don’t know to look for a clean ESN number, you could be buying a stolen phone (I’ve bought a few of my recent phones on Ebay and had to deal with the aforementioned issue a few years ago. Lesson learned.) Still, if your phone isn’t stolen, it could be misplaced. (Say on the subway in San Francisco?… Ah friend, you know who you are.) But seriously, the concept of phones disappearing is not novel, and in fact, could increase with this kind of attractive technology baiting thieves and scam-artists.

The Ugly = Pretty much to continue on with the above ‘bad’ comment - we will effectively have so much information on our smartphones, that it could prove dangerous. How many of you have accidentally left your Facebook page open, only to find your friends have left some interesting comments as your status updates? Or how about, finding out your email inbox has been hacked? Finally, how about finding out that your credit card has been used by someone other than yourself and so you had to shut it down to stop said person from buying more using your credit?

All of these are definite possibilities with this new future for our smartphones - indeed the ugliest of options. 

Still, as often happens, convenience trumps possible inconveniences. And obviously more strict safety measures will have to be put in place once these things roll out and become more mainstream. 

In the meantime, check out this Mashable article review and Google’s own video on the topic.

What do you think? Good, bad, or ugly?

Google officially rolled out its Google Wallet mobile payment system Monday. We’ve been using a Sprint Nexus S 4G with Google Wallet for the past six weeks. Google Wallet is still in its infancy, but the system already shows a lot of promise…

Crowdsourcing is the act of outsourcing tasks, traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, to an undefined, large group of people or community (a “crowd”), through an open call. 

Jeff Howe, one of first authors to employ the term, established that the concept of crowdsourcing depends essentially on the fact that because it is an open call to an undefined group of people, it gathers those who are most fit to perform tasks, solve complex problems and contribute with the most relevant and fresh ideas. 

For example, the public may be invited to develop a new technology, carry out a design task (also known as community-based design and distributed participatory design), refine or carry out the steps of an algorithm (see human-based computation), or help capture, systematize or analyze large amounts of data (see also citizen science). 

The term has become popular with businesses, authors, and journalists as shorthand for the trend of leveraging the mass collaboration enabled by Web 2.0 technologies.

What say you?