Mobile payments? Is this something that happens as you go speeding by a drive thru at 50+ miles per hour? Not really, actually it refers to making payments for goods as and services with your mobile phone.

Well TheFeature’s latest article on the matter looks at the importance of making sure the definition is clear and people also understand how to make these types of payments from their mobile devices in the first place.

Ever since mobile data applications first started showing up on phones and devices, people started wondering about the commerce capabilities via phones. Some of these made more sense than others. On the less than useful side, Amazon.com launched a WAP application early on in the pre-historic mobile data days, that allowed people to buy books on the spot via their phones. This seemed like an odd application. How often do you need to order a book right away, but not receive it for a few days? It would seem that, if you can wait a few days for delivery, you can probably wait a few hours to buy it from the easier web interface. Other applications, obviously, have been much more useful, and many companies are working on systems like NTT DoCoMo’s FeliCa to make mobile payments easier — even if there are some questions about standards.