Everything You Need to Know About Near Field Communication

Google Nexus S: Google's Nexus S, made by Samsung, is the first NFC-compatible smartphone in the U.S.  Google

Why Are Gadget-Makers, Bankers, Merchants, and Wireless Carriers So Gung-Ho About It?

NFC has some pretty amazing possibilities, but the reason every company from Google to Visa to McDonald's to T-Mobile is singing its praises has nothing to do with your ability to remember your router's password. In their eyes, NFC is always bracketed by dollar signs, with thoughts of direct advertising and real-time customer data causing their brains' mouths to mind-water (it's a serious condition). Pay for a purchase with your NFC-enabled phone, get a coupon. Tap your phone to an NFC-enabled movie poster, get a special offer for a 1PM Tuesday showing of Gnomeo and Juliet: The Squeakquel (this will be in the near future, obviously). Use NFC's mobile payment capabilities, and you're likely to get coupons, promos, samples, or other various digital perks beamed back to you in response.
But that doesn't explain why the business types are quivering in their business suits about NFC. The answer: It's all about advertising.
When Google's soon-to-be-ex-CEO Eric Schmidt recently took the stage at Mobile World Congress, he was barely able to contain his excitement. Google, let us recall, is in the business of ads and customer data. When you make an NFC purchase, your phone isn't just transmitting your bank numbers for payment. It can also transmit your buying habits and demographic information. That sounds terrifying, but for the most part that kind of information is already out there and being used every time you buy an app, or anything from Amazon, or search for a product on Google. NFC just has the potential to make that data available instantly and in real time, which is exceedingly valuable to marketers and retailers and other people who care that you prefer Five Guys to Shake Shack. And instead of coupons, you might get beamed advertising instead--intensely targeted ads tailored to your latest purchase.

Of course, it's unlikely that your personal data would be given to merchants without your knowledge -- at least by Google, which has a history of providing opt-out options for advertising like that. But if would certainly be possible.