

Tagstand and the NFC Revolution - kul
http://startupharbor.wordpress.com/2012/06/03/tagstand-and-the-nfc-revolution/

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iloveponies
NFC is not a revolution.

Revolutions are events that change the way a lot of people do things in a
short amount of time, and very few deployments of NFC have actually done that
as they usually end up as gimmicks replacing QR codes or other such poor UX
ways that consumers interact with products or services because there is a mad
arms race to monopolise the only significant use cases of NFC worth caring
about (payment/public transportation ticketing and customer loyalty systems)
meanwhile the scraps that can't be monopolised like "smart" posters and other
forms of interaction that do little more than signal a user to open a URL with
their device provide little incentive for the overheads and poor device
support. Whilst some may think it's amazing that "bonking" (in El Reg
parlance) your device against a sticker can check you into foursquare,
millions in Japan are using a contactless coupon system that ties into devices
to buy their meals and from the same device pay for the meal through a
separate payment system and require no interaction from the user apart from
placing their handset on the reader.

East Asia succeeded in its deployment of NFC like systems because the
monopolisation of payments systems were worked out with carriers long before
major deployment, because (at least in the Japanese market) carriers have the
tightest stronghold on the hardware specifications in the devices sold for
their networks and because transportation services, carriers and the companies
creating the technology are all stake holders. (Felica Networks).

There's currently lot's of "potential" being seen in western trials of NFC
technology, but still a very big chicken and egg problem: not enough devices
support it, not enough carriers and transportation authorities seem to care
about it, and consumers see little benefit.

~~~
tmflannery
I'm not sure your views on timing are appropriate. Airplanes revolutionized
travel, but I don't think everyone booked a trip once the Wright Brothers
flew. I also don't get why competition amongst big players to "win" the
payments, ticketing, and loyalty section is harmful or why it precludes NFC
from succeeding in the West. Besides that, just because these are the three
existing uses of NFC technology that people deem profitable, that doesn't mean
there's not something else out there. It's young. I also think your arguement
is targeted at B2C and I think it overlooks B2B uses.

~~~
iloveponies
You're right, I'm not paying any attention to B2B uses simply because I care
little about them and in my opinion the only way on gaining mass adoption for
NFC technology is consumer orientated.

In 2006, a year before the iPhone was released Mobile Suica was brought to the
East Japanese market, NDEF was standardised by the NFC Forum, the first
handset with NFC (the Nokia 6131) was released and a year later it was
trialled by the Transport for London for use in their ticketing system but was
rejected for being too slow at the gates. In 2009 NXP released the PN544 -
currently one of the most common NFC chipsets used in mobile devices.

This technology has been around for several years now, and the press has
talked about at length of carriers, transportation authorities, financial
institutions and retailers "trialling" contactless payment in some form or
another, very little has actually emerged in comparison. In addition there has
been a handful of startup types either social network orientated or
hardware/service orientated attempt to find some use case in the parts of the
NFC specification (mostly surrounding read/write NDEF to card or SNEP to
device) that can't be monopolised because as yet only one mobile OS maker
(Blackberry) is opening the secure element - required for transactions. Nokia
have also tried to push the non-secure parts of NFC when Symbian was more
important to them in the market but are charging £20 for a single smart
poster.

Perhaps there is some unfound use for NFC in both B2B and B2C that I, and the
handfuls of other people have failed to see or the dozens of companies who've
trialled this technology didn't make proper sense of. I'm still convinced this
is a chicken and egg problem and the only reason it exists is from a lack of
cohesion between multiple factors.

------
tmflannery
How long until we see NFC on the iPhone? Omar says it's when, not if.

~~~
kul
That's really tough to answer. Apple list NXP Semiconductor (who basically
only do RFID/NFC stuff) as an official supplier, and this was a recent
addition:
[http://images.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/pdf/Apple_Sup...](http://images.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/pdf/Apple_Supplier_List_2011.pdf)

Multiple NFC patents have been filed, some NFC hires have been made. The 4S
was the same phone case as the 4 so no new antennas could be put in.

I'd probably rate it at 30%:70% 2012:2013.

