My old friend Osama Bedier now works for Google. This is especially interesting after reports that Google has partnered up with MasterCard and CitiGroup to test out an NFC payments system. It’s also pretty interesting in light of the fact that Google recently filed for a patent for a “Distributed Electronic Commerce System With Centralized Point Of Purchase,” or what sounds like a mobile shopping cart that wraps ups all elements of a transaction into a process, goes beyond PayPal and actually collects data about what users are buying. Bedier started his Web 2.0 Expo talk by emphasizing that e-commerce hasn’t changed very much in 13 years, but then said that it was about to go through a major transition, as the convergence of mobile, local and social will change the industry. He set aside three elements that needed to be in place before the next eCommerce revolution. 1. Payments need to go digital. 2. Inventory needs to live in the cloud. 3. Identity needs to be interoperable. So what does the future of eCommerce look like? It looks like it did 50 years ago, with a completely personalized experience according to Bedier. “But over coming these challenges, it’s not about any one app site or company,” everyone has to work together, Bedier said.
