By Eelco van de Wiel

The latest version of the Android SDK has full support for NFC functionalities.
NFC means Near Field Communication and allows mobile phones to communicate to nearby objects. Chances are that if you buy a smartphone towards the end of this year, and most certainly in 2012, it will be equipped with a NFC chip. This technological advancement introduces a new era in mobile communication as it allows mobile payments, location based mobile advertising and communication with local objects to launch a URL, call a number, open a map to a location or launch an  application. 

The NFC chip will replace all of the cards in your wallet and is expected to be the future payment medium. Google focussed their API on mobile payments and is working with MasterCard and Citigroup on a near field communication (NFC) based mobile payments system. 

Even though the technology has been around for a long time it’s only now that the large scale introduction is announced. The long delay has been a result of the economic crisis in combination with the large shifts in the operators - software - hardware powerfield. Now one of the major players, Google, included the NFC technology the technological shift finally takes place.

As happened with all previous technological developments it will take a long time for the leading design to emerge. The next period will be dominated by a power struggle among the big players in the ecommerce and payment playing field to gain the largest market share. As it took almost a decade to introduce the new PIN card in the Netherlands, it might also take as long for mobile payment to be fully supported. 

The image below shows a possible solution that uses RFID: 

Google earns over 1 billion dollars from mobile platforms in 2010.

“Mobile is on an annualized run rate of over $1 billion. This means the people who are accessing our products and services through their mobile phones are adding a $1 billion annually to our existing revenue streams. Clearly, this is the future of search in the Internet, more people in more countries coming online from these smartphones. Our mobile search queries have grown five times over the past couple of years. And of course, a lot more of those queries are now coming from Android phones.”

According to a Gartner research Android will have a market share of 30% (currently 18%) at the end of 2014 and becomes market leader. 

Canadian Nuevo Watches offers virtual tryvertising to home shoppers using their mobile phone.

Compatible with the iPhone and the 4th generation iPod touch, the Nuevo app lets users try on and select watches in the Neuvo watch collection without physically touching them. 

This is a simple and effective example of  augmented reality and a nice way of integrating mobile apps in marketing strategy. How about a virtual fitting room for large fashion houses?

Today the website of Heyello was launched at www.heyello.nl. The application was submitted to the appstore of Apple. We are waiting for approval..

The price for every postcard send using the application will be only 1,59 euro!