How a quiet month in August turned into a telemedia storm

As we reconvene after taking August off, its time to catch up on all the exciting things that happened while we were on the world's sun loungers and drinking cocktails

We only took August off and look what happened? In one short month we have seen Google axe its plan to junk cookies – having a profound impact on marketing and ecommerce, while seeing the industry sigh in relief – Deutsche Telekom add DCB to its online shop in Germany as the agent model takes off and talk of voice and SMS fraud falling as fraudsters move on to other channels.

Coupled with alternative payments looking to get a boost from developing markets in the coming months, Apple poised to roll out RCS and a raft of exciting developments around next month’s World Telemedia Marbella and its been a rather lively ‘quiet’ spell over the summer.

Google and cookies

So, first to Google and that volte face on cookies. Back in July – the day I closed my computer and went on holiday – Google announced, somewhat as a bolt from the blue, that after four years it was abandoning its plan to?axe third-party cookies from Chrome, instead offering users the ability to turn cookies off if they want to at the browser level.

The move sees the world of online advertising stay just as it was. That shouldn’t really be news, except the cancellation of cookies negates years of work in the ad world to come up with new ways to gather user data to sell ads against online.

It has spawned the concept of commerce media – were customer-facing businesses can now sell their first-party user data to advertisers to offer a heavily targeted offering –?which many retailers are pinning their hopes on for increased revenues. That may now be not as powerful as they hoped.

Secondly, media companies have been vexed as to how they were going to monetise audiences without cookie data. Most introduced paywalls. That now seems to be redundant and many of these walls are likely to come down.

However, the real mystery lies in what comes next. The Internet Advertising Board (IAB) stressed when the announcement was made that it all now depends on what Google introduces instead. It looks like it will be much easier blanket opt out at browser level and an end to those annoying ‘accept cookies’ pop-ups, but how many consumers will blanket block cookies remains to be seen. It may well yet be that consumers themselves will kill cookies.

DT goes DCB

The other big news this summer has been Germany’s Deutsche Telekom leveraging the agent model to roll out DCB in its online store through DIMOCO Payments ayments.

The Agent Model is a setup that allows MNOs to facilitate payments on behalf of consumers. It allows for greater flexibility and scalability in carrier billing, catering to a wider range of payment needs in today’s market. Under the Agent Model, DIMOCO payments has the financial license and pays strict adherence to legal frameworks like PSD2 to ensure compliance and security.

With the DIMOCO Payments Agent Model, Telekom and Brodos can accept carrier billing payments for physical goods. This next step will allow customers to make friction-free purchases on a wide range of white goods and other products.

There have been many developments in Germany around DCB in the past year and it has become key market to look at when seeing how DCB can fit into the mainstream world of mobile payments. With the Global Carrier Billing & Mobile Payment Summit coming up later this month in Amsterdam, and World Telemedia Marbella in October, it will be interesting to see where the industry takes these developments

Alternative payments

Both these events are also going to be a hotbed of debate around alternative payments. According to the latest data from Juniper Research, global ecommerce transactions could reach $11.4trn by 2029 – up from $7trn in 2024 – driven by the adoption of ecommerce across emerging markets. In these regions, it will be?Alternative Payment Methods?(APMs) that enable consumers in non-card-centric markets to purchase online for the first time.

APMs are any cashless and cardless way of transferring funds, such as digital wallets and account-to-account payments. According to the study, 360 billion ecommerce transactions will be made using APMs; constituting 69% of global ecommerce transactions.

As APMs make ecommerce payments more inclusive, unbanked consumers in emerging markets will shift their purchasing habits online. This shift will be complemented by increased investment in delivery ecosystems, making deliveries more viable and increasing ecommerce’s value proposition.

The months ahead

That all happened across August – the traditionally quiet month when I take a holiday. Instead, it has presaged the ‘second half’ of 2024, which is set to be one of hectic development across the telemedia market. Later this month iOS 18 will be launched, featuring compatibility with RCS for the first time. With RCS now ubiquitous across operating systems, expect to see some frenzied roll outs by brands leveraging the tech. We also may even see our own Jarvis Todd – the proud owner of an RCS-enabled Android phone for some months now –?actually get an RCS.

We are also likely to see some interesting developments around payments, cyber security and more, so stay tuned to Telemedia-news and book your tickets for our live event, World Telemedia Marbella on the 7-9 October where you can really get to grips with all the latest trends and developments and meet the people who are making the market.