Could this payment system have as profound an effect on how people pay for stuff in the real world as the iTunes store has had on the distribution and sale of digital media? FastCompany reports on the design-driven solution:

Jack Dorsey is the brains behind Square and the cofounder and chairman of Twitter. Here’s how Square got started: Jack’s former boss and good friend (and eventual co-founder) Jim McKelvey lost a sale for his hand-blown glass because he had no way of accepting credit cards. The problem was one many people had–the barriers to setting yourself up through conventional processes to accept credit card payments were too high for many people. So Dorsey set about seeing if he could create a better system. The result was the Square reader, which launched a year ago and which allows just about anyone to set themselves up to take credit card payments. Even you. Planning a garage sale and want to enable people to pay for your gerbil cages and Shawn Cassidy LPs by credit card? No problem. Square’s for you.

“”I don’t think a lot of financial institutions have spent a lot of time thinking about design,” Dorsey says. “Design is not visual. It’s about simplifying and getting something down to its essence.”

I like the idea that if I am selling a sofa on Craigslist I can take a credit card without going through a huge merchant qualification process with my bank. But I especially like that now I can let small business clients know this solution is available and likely to change the way customers expect to transact business.

I’ve owned an HP psc 2410 photosmart all-in-one “printer-fax-scanner-copier” for around 6 or 7 years—long enough to have the last major Mac OS update blow away my ability to scan. No, wait—make that: long enough that HP decided not to update their driver for this release. Maybe they were thinking “Hey, it’s about time these people bought a new printer!” or maybe “What. Ever. There really aren’t that many Mac users out there, anyway.” At least, that’s how it felt since I upgraded to Snow Leopard late last fall. How frustrating! I searched the boards to see if/how other folks have solved the problem. I downloaded software designed to work with any scanner. I even hauled out my old Agfa ScanPro and tried to find the power cable. No luck. If I had to scan something, I had to bring it in to the MAC to do it.

And the funny thing was, I sort of couldn’t get over it. Every time I drove past the HP campus here in Corvallis, I’d think, “I won’t be buying my next printer from that company.”

So, I was pretty surprised earlier this month to find that HP just released an updated driver for my all-in-one. Now, instead of feeling like a customer who doesn’t matter once the check has been cashed, I feel great! I get my seamless user experience back, and I’m not mad at HP anymore. In fact, the opposite. It feels a little like the Carly is wearing off and the old HP is showing through: the company that has always known that every customer matters. But in the end, I don’t really care why they decided to update the driver. I’m a customer! I don’t need to know why. I just need my all-in-one to work the way they told me it would in the first place.

Thanks, HP! Good work.

That was until this week when Google opened up GVoice to everyone. With it ready for wide release, I thought I’d dust off my account and see if Google could sell me on it this time.

I think it has. Last summer, I saw potential at home where my wife and I had recently dropped our landline. Making use of GVoice’s call forwarding to multiple lines, we could still offer a single phone number with family voicemail while only carrying our cell phones. While that may have it’s uses, it wasn’t enough for me to adopt the service.

But for the solopreneur, the features become more rich. I’m not a proponent of acting bigger than you are. On the other hand, I think we can agree there’s no harm in a little more professionalism. Like shaving. Daily. Or giving your business a dedicated line, as opposed your cell phone. GVoice gives you the ability to truly control your business telephone communication. It’s a (mostly) clean break. You can use the messaging to speak directly to your business audience, not them AND your friends, family, or the guy picking up the free couch you put on Craiglist.

So now your customers, prospects, vendors, and contractors have their own number. And your business voicemail sounds all professional and stuff. But it gets better. In GVoice, you can assign callers to groups. If you want all your regular clients to have their own message, or ring to a certain phone, do it. Even make it a more personal experience by addressing the specific company or individual in the recording.

The feature list rolls on. Rather read your messages? Google transcribes them (though this feature still needs some work in the accuracy department). Annoying sales calls? Mark them as Spam and never see them again. Then, try saving some money on texts and use GVoice to send them.

There’s much more to be found if you sign up. And it’s free. For the solopreneur, I think it offers great value by managing your business line as it’s own entity and giving your customers a better experience in the process.

Will you use Google Voice for your business? How?

Let’s take a look at the power of the @.

For the average Facebook user, there are two places that get your attention. Of course, first is the Wall. It’s where you most often land. But if you as a business aren’t there on the first page of “Most Recent” or “Top News” updates, will your fans ever see you?

This is where the second attention-getter comes in. If not the Wall, your Facebook fans are checking their notifications. And for good reason. It’s the place where all the important stuff gets aggregated, like who’s talking about them or conversations they have commented on. Bottom line: it’s the stuff that gets the clicks.

That’s what makes tagging so powerful. Frank Fan’s Wall might well be full of Farmville updates (he just can’t bring himself to block anything), but he’ll always see his notifications. Like a thoughtful gift, be there with content you shared just for him.

It only takes two simple steps to harness the power of tags:

1.  Make as many fans your Page friends in your personal account as possible (required to tag anyone).

Keep in mind – you’ll need to be comfortable with fans seeing your personal updates. However, I believe the benefits outweigh the risks.

2. Create a new post.

Did you remember to take a picture last time a fan was in the store? Upload and tag it. Did you find a blog that would you think Frank Fan would love? Post it and @  so he’s sure to read it.

That’s it. Not too complicated.  But the beauty of tagging happens not when they click on the notification – it’s when they undoubtedly comment on the post. Now it becomes an entry for all their community to see and a sure-fire conversation starter (read lots and lots of comments).

The success of this rightly hinges on a deep understanding of your fans as individuals. What do they like and dislike? What are their passions? Would you even recognize them if they walked in your door? If it’s not personal and relative, it’s spam.  And you’ll be ignored or worse disliked. But done well and your community will adore you.

So tag it up. And have fun making fans feel special. What ways will use it?

I monitor some keywords on twitter via some Hootsuite columns. One of them is “insurance” and I have a geo-tag with it to grab tweets mentioning “insurance” within a 40 mile radius of Corvallis.

Once every week or two I catch someone asking a question or mentioning they’re getting quotes, and I respond. Earlier this week was just such an opportunity.

Ty Hildebrand, a Realtor in Salem, mentioned he was looking for homeowner’s insurance, so of course I responded. Something to the effect of, “If you’d like us to get you a quote, I’d love to help”. Much to my happiness, Ty replied with his cell phone number.

Turns out, Ty has a property that is currently vacant- very difficult to insure, and expensive. I took my time to explain to him the what’s and why’s, but ultimately told him I couldn’t help.

About five minutes after I hung up with him, I thought to myself. What in the world did I do? Here this guy was looking for help, and in the end, I did nothing for him. Lame, if you ask me.

So I quickly called a broker buddy of mine who’s able to do oddball stuff and asked if he could do vacant properties. He said he could, so I asked how much (ballpark), and what options there are for payment. Then I called Ty back.

“Hey Ty, I can’t believe I finished my last call without giving you some actual help. I have a guy I trust that can write your property for you. You can pay for 3, 6 or 9 months of coverage, which will help, because it’s kind of spendy. Expect it to be about 3x the cost of a normal homeowners policy, annualized. My friend is expecting your call. Let me know if I can ever help you with something else. Cheers.”

What impression would Ty have had of me if I hadn’t made that second call?