One of the reasons why the uptake has been very slow is the fact that there is a limited number of phones that is compatible with the service.  In fact, for the first few months of the Google Wallet service, it only had one phone under its belt, the Samsung Nexus S.  Recently, only one other phone had been added: Samsung Galaxy Nexus.

The good news is that there will now be four mobile phones that will be Google Wallet-compatible within the month of May with the launch of LG Optimus Elite and HTC’s Evo 4G LTE.

LG Optimus Elite would soon be available on Virgin USA, a unit of Sprint.  Sprint is the only carrier that supports Google’s Wallet service.

Sprint also announced that they have just begun selling HTC Evo 4G LTE, the fourth Google Wallet device.

LG Optimus Elite has a 3.5-inch capacitive touchscreen, runs on Android Gingerbread OS, and has a 5 megapixel camera and camcorder with flash.  It may be used as a mobile hotspot that can connect five Wi-Fi devices.  However, what makes the LG Optimus Elite different is the fact that recyclable materials were used in making the phones.  It is available for $150 on Virgin USA.

The HTC Evo 4G LTE, meanwhile, is for those who are looking for a faster phone.  Granted that LTE technology is not yet available in the US, it’s a good phone for those who are looking to have a handset that is LTE ready.  It runs on Android 4 and a 1.5 gigahertz Snapdragon S4 processor.  It sports an 8 megapixel camera.  It also comes with a kickstand that can hold the phone up sideways.  It is available on Sprint for $200 on a two-year contract.

This means that AMEX credit card holders would be able to use their AMEX credit cards to purchase wirelessly via ISIS if they have a near-field communication chip, as well as the ISIS app installed, on their phones.

American Express is not the first, however, to support ISIS.  Other financial institutions such as Chase, Barclaycard and Capital One have already professed their support for ISIS early this year.

The people behind ISIS, however, have yet to specify which NFC handsets are going to be compatible with their system.  They have also failed to give a specific launch date.

While NFC has been widely used in Japan and South Korea, among other countries, the adoption of the technology has been slow in the United States due to several factors, including the lack of cooperation between telecom operators, banks and other financial institutions.  This is on top of the shortage of NFC-enabled smartphones and payment terminals.

ISIS is a product of AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile USA but the platform will be available for use by any interested company.  ISIS has been tagged as a strong contender in the mobile payments arena where Google’s Wallet service has been on first.  Google Wallet has suffered from the lack of cooperation from the three ISIS backers, contenting itself with working only with Sprint.

Nevertheless, NFCMe.com welcomes the launch of ISIS.  It will only bring more people to become more familiar with NFC technology and its use in mobile payments.  Plus, the more competition in this space, the better it is for consumers.  They will see better services and lower fees.

Why is this?

It is because NFC could mean a source of huge income for them.  But NFC is a free service right? So where does the money come from?

1. Interchange fees.  Interchange fees are the fees that are charged by payment networks for every transaction made using their cards.  This is usually 2% of the purchase amount.  Merchants around the world, who typically pay for interchange fees, pay close to $2 trillion every year in interchange fees.

2. Advertising. With the rising use of smartphones, mobile phones and mobile apps, this presents another marketing channel that is growing bigger and bigger to ignore.  In fact, more and more companies and brands are now including mobile marketing into their marketing mix.  NFC is currently being looked into as a great and convenient way to bridge offline marketing with online information.

3. Lending and fees.  Financial institutions are not only credit card issuers.  They are also creditors.  NFC could present a way to divert some of the fees and interests being charged by these banks and financial institutions.

4. More sales for smartphone manufacturers.  It is a known fact that people are now looking at smartphones to replace their old feature phones.  Most people are also getting smartphones to increase their productivity and get a better on-the-go mobile experience.  With more and more people buying smartphones, there is also a corresponding increase in the number of smartphone manufacturers scurrying to fill that demand.  NFC presents a good way to attract a huge portion of these potential smartphone buyers.

5. Information and behavioral data.  Google was very blunt in saying that they aim to get information from their users.  They want to be able to know your every behavior online.  NFC payment via their Google Wallet is not different.  Google wants to know what you are buying, where and what time of the day and what day of the week you are shopping.  This information, in turn, can be used for marketing purposes and for fully understanding consumer behavior.

But NFC can be used for other things as well. Here are some ideas:

1. Do away with paper tickets.  You can use NFC as tickets to your event.  This will make it more difficult to come up with fake tickets and would make it easier for you to keep a tally of your attendees.  Instead of ushers checking tickets, you can just have readers to screen out the gate crashers.

2. Make it easier to share on social media.  Let’s say that one of the highlights of your event is a mini concert by Maroon 5.  Why not let your attendees tweet that they are listening to Move Like Jagger live just by waving their NFC wristbands.  Doing so would allow them to automatically tweet what they are doing and help you get more exposure!

3. NFC games and bonuses.  Why not give away digital bonuses or plan an NFC-based game?  If you have exhibitors at your event, you could also tell them that NFC is a good way to gather contact details of potential customers rather than the old business-card-in- the-fish-bowl technique.

4. Pre-registration with NFC.  If you have a recurring or annual event, why not let your current attendees register for the next event just by waving their NFC ID tags or wristbands?

5. Give out more information.  If you need to give out more information, why not use NFC?  For instance, if you have a wine tasting event, you might want to make use of near-field communication technology.  People would only need to wave their smartphones in front of wine bottles and they can get more information about it and even buy it!

This is the idea behind iCache Geode, a new service that won two e-tech awards at the CTIA Wireless 2012 Conference.  iCache won the first prize in these two categories:

• Mobile Commerce, Shopping & Rewards
• Mobile Consumer Electronics Accessories

Basically, iCache Geode aims to replace your wallet by keeping your loyalty and rewards cards, gift cards, membership cards and credit cards.  It makes use of a secure iPhone case that can only be unlocked with your own fingerprints.

But for mobile payment, you can use the GeoCard feature.  All you have to do is to slide your index finger on the case to activate your iPhone. Some steps later, your credit card information will be temporarily copied to the GeoCard. You can then use the GeoCard to pay for your purchases.

This would be a great way to introduce mobile payments to today’s consumers.  Because you could use the GeoCard anytime and anywhere, it enables you to pay wirelessly even without the use of near-field technology.  NFC is not readily available right now because of the lack of handsets and payment terminals that are NFC-enabled.

NFCMe.com thinks that this is a much better alternative to credit cards.  Because of its biometrics feature, only you can access the system and make use of the data you have stored in your special case.  Plus, you get the added protection of the time limit that the Geocard is valid as a payment card.  We would, however, like to see the addition of NFC to its features.  This way, if the merchant has an NFC-enabled terminal, you really do not have to go through several steps just to pay.

RIM has long been using near-field communication in its phones. In the past, even their lower end smartphones sport NFC technology. On top of that, the company has been in constant search to develop more and more NFC applications.

In fact, at the recent Blackberry Solutions Showcase where RIM launched Blackberry 10, RIM was pushing its products and NFC technology in equal measure. During the event, RIM showed how NFC could help different wireless devices communicate with each other. The message was loud and clear: for RIM, NFC is the future.

Blackberry Music Gateway

One of the biggest buzz to come out of RIM’s launch of Blackberry 10 last week is the Blackberry Music Gateway.

What It Is

The Blackberry Music Gateway is a new gadget that uses both NFC and Bluetooth technology to allow users to stream music right from a Blackberry or a Playbook tablet.

The Music Gateway also acts like a remote control. The gadget allows users to control their music from some 30 feet away, so you do not have to stand up just to stop J. Lo from singing and put on some Nikki Minaj.

It also mutes the music if you receive a call.

NFC Makes Pairing Easy

The Blackberry Music Gateway actually uses Bluetooth to play the music wirelessly, but NFC technology makes pairing easy. Bluetooth pairing can be a pain in the neck, especially for tech-challenged individuals. You would need to have both devices to pair more and you have to find each other and enter a code.

With NFC, you can forego all these steps. You just need to tap your Blackberry phone or Playbook with the Gateway and you are connected!

Interested? You would have to wait next month before it becomes available in stores. Suggested retail price is $50.

Wrong!

In what many consider as the most brilliant, most creative, most innovative, and most unique quick response code display to date, Korea’s Emart played with the midday sun to come up with a QR code shadow.

The Korean shopping center wanted to promote its “Sunny Sale” event and to attract more customers during lunch hour, which is downtime for most people. To do this, the company created a quick response code with shadows with the help of nothing less than the midday sun. The code can be seen by people on the street and can only be scanned from 12 noon to one o’clock in the afternoon when the shadows form just the right pattern.

Scanning the QR code will give consumers the chance to check out Emart’s products, do some mobile shopping via their smartphones, and even have their purchased items conveniently delivered right on their doorstep.

According to Emart, since the promotion, they have seen a significant increase in sales. The company stated that it saw a 25% rise in its sales during lunch period as a result of this Sunny Sale promotion.

It surely did not hurt that the company’s very innovative strategy was designed to attract people’s attention. And because it is something new to the tech-savvy Koreans – who by this time are very familiar with QR codes – the shadow QR code makes them curious enough to find out whether it is indeed effective and ‘scannable.’

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that their QR code concept has gotten a great deal of media coverage.

But what does the bookseller plan to do with NFC on its e-readers? Lynch explains that you could touch your Nook to any book that has an NFC chip in it and get more information about the book. You could read editorial reviews from BN.com. You could also tap to get a Barnes and Noble’s bestseller lists, pictures and other stuff. You could also purchase an e-book version of physical books you find in their bookstores. Barnes and Noble is currently asking publishers to ship their books with an NFC tag embedded in it.

Lynch, however, was non-committal on how soon we’re going to see NFC chips inside its Nook tablet. When pressed if this will be available this year, Lynch only answered, “Maybe.”

This is a great development for NFC. So far, NFC has been closely associated with mobile and wireless payments. But more and more companies have been looking at NFC as a marketing tool. With the ideas put forth by Barnes and Noble, it certainly is a great way to show other companies how to use it to sell more books.

NFC technology can also help BN differentiate itself from archrival Amazon.com. In addition to its online bookstore, BN also has physical bookstores where people come in to browse for books. With NFC, it is like extending the BN.com site to their physical bookstores! Amazon.com does not have that and may not be able to take advantage of NFC technology to market to people who are not on their site!

As Lynch himself puts it, there is a lot of potential in integrating the online world with the offline world. In their case, NFC provides the platform to integrate physical Barnes and Noble bookstores and the information they have on BN.com. Lynch adds that the company is working on giving customers the ultimate experience in its stores and is currently looking for more cool experiences to give them. We think that NFC chips inside Nooks are one of them!

For one, it would give them an advantage. NFC might not be widely popular until 2020, but it will have increased acceptance from merchants and consumers even before then. Entering the NFC market now would mean that they would have a good position when it becomes mainstream to dominate the market.

This is not to say that it is going to be easy. Even Google is finding it difficult to make its Wallet service attractive to merchants because of the slow release of compatible Android devices and with only one carrier, Sprint, behind it.

But as we have said before, it is only a matter of time before NFC becomes more popular. With the increasing use of NFC technology not just for payments but also for other stuff such as marketing, device pairing and sharing information, people will become more comfortable using NFC. Soon, they will learn to trust it and clamor for their favorite stores to have NFC as a payment option.

This will lead to more merchants wanting to get NFC terminals for their cash registers.

With Google dominating the market by being noisier and being persistent, whose door do you think would merchants knock on? On the other hand, Google’s main competitor, ISIS, has three mobile carriers working behind it. But its NFC-based product is nowhere where Google Wallet is.

The dominance of Google’s Wallet service would force other players to acknowledge it, or at least tailor their services to be compatible with it.

And this is why Google is not waiting for eight years on NFC!

The new study showed that 24% German consumers have scanned and made use of QR codes, compared with only 12% of their counterparts in the UK. As you can see, the number of Germans who have used the two-dimensional matrix bar codes is twice the number of Brits.

SKOPOS compiled the data from smartphone users who are familiar with QR codes and how to use them. The figures from SKOPOS are also supported by numbers from 3G Vision. 3G Vision had found that next to the United States, Germany is the largest QR code user.

According to SKOPOS, the popularity of QR codes among Germans could be the result of various local businesses having aggressively supported the codes in the past couple of years. The firm has established that, based on its extensive research and its experience in both the German and British markets, it is the German consumers who appreciate QR codes more because German brands had heavily invested in these codes in 2010 and 2011.
German companies had come up with QR code-based marketing initiatives and offered attractive incentives and rewards to make QR codes more appealing to local consumers and to encourage them to scan. As a result, those that have not yet adopted the codes felt like they were missing out on great benefits.

Moreover, SKOPOS noted that culturally speaking, Germans are more into mobile technology while Brits are more into social media. This means that the latter are more open, while the former are relatively more closed and are less into sharing.