ButtUgly: Main_blogentry_060906

NFC a hit in US, says pilot

Well, sometimes introducing new technology sounds deceptively easy. In a pilot between Atlanta Spirit, Chase, Cingular, Nokia, NXP, Visa USA and Vivotech, 150 people were given NFC -enabled cell phones, which they could then use to pay for things, use as tickets, access information, download media, etc, and people really seemed to genuinely like it.

Key findings include:

Trial participants overwhelmingly embraced the technology and expressed that the mobile device and applications significantly improved their arena experience
Data usage increased during game days; trial participants used their NFC-enabled mobile device more frequently to search for and purchase digital content

(The whole article can be found in Contactless News.)

I like NFC. It's a good, solid technology with plenty of applications, which hold a promise of making the life of the users easier. Not everything, mind you (it's not the fabled silver bullet - that one is still in the labs), but for some things it's just perfect. And it feels so natural, once you get the hang of it.

I guess that this is where we see whether the mobile industry learned from the WAP catastrophy, and will refrain from pushing technology over substance. There's plenty of both in NFC, and it'll be interesting to see how the whole thing gets marketed.

(The standard disclaimers about me working for Nokia apply.)