Near Field Communication (NFC) adoption is accelerating, and ubiquity could be as little as 3-5 years off. ‘Smart Posters’ are now being tested globally and NFCs many other applications are in advanced tests as well.
According to Pinktentacle, SoftBank Mobile, NTT Data, and Hitachi are testing an integrated marketing program this month and next in one of Japan’s busiest shopping districts.
Throughout October, selected test participants will be able to receive and view digital content such as movie stills and trailers simply by holding their NFC-compatible phones (containing NFC-USIM cards) next to the smart posters. Along with the digital content, users also receive an access code that, when transferred to a compatible Hitachi HDTV at home, allows them to view a WALL-E trailer in high definition (via Hitachi’s content distribution service).
What is NFC ? It’s essentially a cross between Bluetooth and RFID for your portable device… that is, you don’t have to go through the painful exercise of ‘pairing’ your devices, and when enabled and ’swiped’, external sources can initiate personalized transactions with your device spontaneously.
It’s a foundational innovation that could bring personalized, integrated, relationship-building communications to a whole new level. There’s a lot to chew on in that idea…
If you’re not convinced, think about what Apple could do with NFC enabled iPods and how the iTunes experience could be initiated at any poster or physical point of presence…
With broadband wireless, and NFC enhancing the iTunes and iPod experience, Apple (or Zune, which has a deeper customer relationship model in the first place) the bus shelter becomes your record store… your video store… your Pandora… Your Netflix…
hold on tight, advertising and media delivery is about to change gears again.
For more about Near Field Communications technology, here’s a snip from Wikipedia on what other applications are being tested in NFC (not quote blocked to retain formatting):
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NFC technology is currently mainly aimed at being used with mobile phones. There are three main use cases for NFC:
- card emulation: the NFC device behaves like an existing contactless card
- reader mode: the NFC device is active and read a passive RFID tag, for example for interactive advertising
- P2P mode: two NFC devices are communicating together and exchanging information.
Plenty of applications are possible, such as:
- Mobile ticketing in public transport — an extension of the existing contactless infrastructure.
- Mobile payment — the device acts as a debit/ credit payment card.
- Smart poster — the mobile phone is used to read RFID tags on outdoor billboards in order to get info on the move.
- Bluetooth pairing — in the future pairing of Bluetooth 2.1 devices with NFC support will be as easy as bringing them close together and accepting the pairing. The process of activating Bluetooth on both sides, searching, waiting, pairing and authorization will be replaced by a simple “touch” of the mobile phones.
Other applications in the future could include:
- Electronic ticketing — airline tickets, concert/event tickets, and others
- Electronic money
- Travel cards
- Identity documents
- Mobile commerce
- Electronic keys — car keys, house/office keys, hotel room keys, etc.
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