Silicon Prairie News

(Left: Photo of the Starbucks' mobile card scanner, by Joe McCarthy via Flickr.)

As you may have heard from another news outlet or coffee drinker, Starbucks is now nationally accepting payments via their Starbucks Card Mobile App, which is connected to a costumer's Starbucks Card. Launched today in 6,800 company-operated stores and in more than 1,000 Target locations, the mobile app works by waving the mobile app's on-screen barcode in front of the device on the counter (pictured left).

Coffee, mobile payments, low transaction costs for the merchant. Remind you of anything?

Des Moines-based cash transaction startup Dwolla is trying to get into this market, launching nationally this past December with an event at a popular local coffee shop, Mars Cafe (see our article: "Dwolla Meetup packs a full house at Mars Cafe").

Now, with mobile payments hitting America's best-known coffee shop, this type of option will be on the minds of both merchants and consumers. In other words, this is a very big day for Dwolla. For comparison, go back to 1999 when Netflix launched its mail subscription service. Five years later, Blockbuster matched that subscription service, adding to their established brick and mortar rental store offering. Soon, consumers got the message – DVD via mail is the future. Today, Netflix continues to evolve the space as it streams more and more movies online, even recently adding to its subscription offerings a "stream only" option.

Although that comparison isn't quite on the same level of Dwolla and Starbucks, it shows that when an established player enters an arena a startup is working their tail off to impact, the adoption rate of that startup's technology significantly increases if its model proves to be scalable, reliable and secure. On the Silicon Prairie, and nationally, Dwolla will be a startup to watch in 2011.

Learn more about Starbucks' mobile payment launch and see photos of the app in their press release: "Mobile Payment Debuts Nationally at Starbucks."

Dwolla founder Ben Milne pays for a beverage using Dwolla at the Dwolla Meetup on December 1, 2010. Photo by Anna Jones Photography via Dwolla's Facebook page.