Two events today, although worlds apart, seem inextricably tied together. And the bond between them is as human as it is electronic.

First, on my way to go sit down and read the newspaper at my coffee shop, I got a message from my 10-year-old son, just saying good morning and letting me know he was going to a birthday party today. I don’t get to see him all the time. He’s growing up in two houses, as I did. But recently, as I handed down my old iPhone 3G to him to use basically as an iPod touch. We both installed an app called Yak, so we could communicate with each other when we’re apart.

The amount of calming satisfaction it gives me to be able to communicate with him through technology is undeniably palpable and human. It’s the other side of the “I don’t care what you ate for breakfast this morning” argument against the mundane broadcasting of social media. In this case, I absolutely care about this. I’d listen to him describe a piece of bacon, and hang on every word. Is it better than a conversation with “real words?” No. But is it better than waiting two more days, when the mundane moment that I long to hear about so much is gone? Yes.

I guess one man’s TMI is another man’s treasure.

Moments later, I sat down and opened the paper. A headline immediately stood out: “In China, microblogs finding abducted kids” with the subhead, “A 6-year-old who was snatched when he was 3 is discovered with a family 800 miles away.” Apparently, the occurrence of reclaimed children through the use of China’s version ofTwitter — and other online forums — has become triumphant news over there. I’m reading about the father’s tears, the boy’s own confusing set of emotions, the rapt attention of the town and country, and I’m again marveling at the human side of the Internet.

The Paradox of Online Closeness

I recently asked the question to my Facebook friends: “Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare … is all this making you feel closer to people or farther away?” It sparked a lot of responses and seemed to touch one of our generation’s exposed nerves. What is the effect of the Internet and social media on our humanity?

From the outside view, digital interactions appear to be cold and inhuman. There’s no denying that. And without doubt, given the choice between hugging someone and “poking” someone, I think we can all agree which one feels better. The theme of the responses to my Facebook question seemed to be summed up by my friend Jason, who wrote: “Closer to people I’m far away from.” Then, a minute later, wrote, “but maybe farther from the people I’m close enough to.” And then added, “I just got confused.”

It is confusing. We live in this paradox now, where two seemingly conflicting realities exist side-by-side. Social media simultaneously draws us nearer and distances us. But I think very often, we lament what we miss and forget to admire what we’ve become. And it’s human nature to want to reject the machine at the moment we feel it becoming ubiquitous. We’ve seen it with the printing press, moving pictures, television, video games and just about any other advanced technology that captures our attention. What romantic rituals of relationship and social interaction will die in the process? Our hearts want to know.

In the New Yorker this week, Adam Gopnik’s article “How the Internet Gets Inside Us,” explores this cultural truism in depth. It’s a fantastic read and should be mandatory for anyone in an online industry. He breaks down a whole slew of new books on the subject and categorizes it all into three viewpoints: “the Never-Betters, the Better-Nevers, and the Ever-Wasers.” In short, those who see the current movement as good, bad or normal. I think we all know people from each camp. But ultimately, the last group is the one best equipped to handle it all.

Filling in the Space With Connections

Another observation from the coffee shop: In my immediate vicinity, four people are looking at screens and four people are reading something on paper. And I’m doing both. I see Facebook open on two screens, but I’m sure at some point, it’s been open on all of them. The dynamic in this coffee shop is quite a bit more revealing than any article or book. Think about the varied juxtapositions of physical and digital going on. People aren’t giving up long-form reading, considered thinking or social interactions. They are just filling all the space between. And even that’s not entirely true as I watch the occasional stare out the window or long glance around the room.

The way people engage with the Internet and social media isn’t like any kind of interaction we’ve ever seen before. It’s like an intertwining sine wave that touches in and out continuously. And the Internet itself is more complex and interesting than we often give it credit for. Consider peer-to-peer networking as just one example, where the tasks are distributed among the group to form a whole. It’s practically a metaphor for the human mind. Or a township. Or a government. Or a family.

The Internet doesn’t steal our humanity, it reflects it. The Internet doesn’t get inside us, it shows what’s inside us. And social media isn’t cold, it’s just complex and hard to define. I’ve always thought that you really see something’s value when you try to destroy it. As we have now laid witness to in recent news, the Internet has quickly become the atom of cultural media; intertwined with our familial and cultural bonds, and destroyed only at great risk. I think if we search our own souls and consider our own personal way of navigating, we know this is as true personally as it is globally. The machine does not control us. It is a tool. As advanced today as a sharpened stick was a couple million years ago. Looked at through this lens, perhaps we should re-frame our discussions about technology from how it is changing us to how we are using it.

Full article here

NFC is a short-range wireless technology and includes real-time anti-fraud alerts and other features designed to protect consumers from fraud.

You can make payments today on the iPhone 4 using a sleeve that fits on the iPhone, but the strong indications are that in June this year, when iPhone 5 is launched – it will have the NFC chip built into the actual phone.

Safer than plastic?
But is it any safer than using a plain old credit card? Yes, Visa and others say. Anyone can swipe a credit card or steal the credit card number off a charge slip. Credit cards can also be cloned and skimming devices and videocameras hidden in ATMs and gas station terminals can snatch both the credit card number and the PIN.

The PayWave system has a number of features to protect against fraud and abuse. For instance, the system monitors activity in real time and can alert a customer within minutes of a suspicious transaction. It looks for anomalies in account activity and analyzes transaction size, merchant, and other information and then compares that with prior account activity and other transactions taking place on the Visa network.

The NFC chip has a secure component that generates a unique authentication code for each transaction, whereas the data on a magnetic stripe on a credit card doesn’t change. The phone must be 2 to 4 centimeters from the reader to work, making data interception extremely difficult, Visa says. Also, the radio transmitter turns off after about eight seconds. And password-protected phones add an additional layer of protection for lost or stolen devices. (In the Visa Europe implementation a user is prompted for a password to use the PayWave app.)

Read more: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13970_7-20032840-78.html#ixzz1Em0aQyF6

With more than 70% of the world’s population owning a mobile phone, it’s time for small businesses to pay attention to mobile and begin planning their mobile strategy now.

Below are four predictions on how the growth of mobile will affect small businesses in 2011, with key takeaways on how you can get started with each one.

1. Mobile Payments

Allowing your customers to buy with speed and confidence is essential for any small business owner, but with the pace of modern life, it’s now increasingly important to let your customers buy at their convenience.

Mobile payments mean a retailer of any size can accept and process credit card payments, all with a smartphone, an account and corresponding app. Mobile payments can aid in expanding business and increasing revenue for a small business simply by using their existing smartphone.

There are already several options available to any small business interested in accepting mobile payments, including:

• Square is a cube-like plug-in that works with your iPhone, iPad or Android phone, to read credit cards and allows merchants to accept mobile payments. You can track sales, tips, tax, payment locations and your customers from one place. There are no contracts or monthly minimums, and the card reader and setup are free. There is, however, a limit of $1,000 deposit per week into your bank account, with the remainder deposited in 30 days.
• PAYware Mobile is an app, card reader and payment gateway from Verifone that allows the user to accept and process credit cards using an iPhone 3G/3GS. Manual card entry only is supported on the iPhone 4, iPad and iPod touch. It uses VeriFone’s PAYware connect payment gateway to process payments. The encryption sleeve costs $149 and the transaction fees vary by merchant account.
• GoPayment is a service provided via a partnership between Intuit and Mophie to enable secure credit card processing on your iPhone (3G/3GS). You can process any credit card either directly or by swiping it with the Mophie credit card reader. Receipts are either e-mailed or texted to your customers. The card reader costs $179.95 with a monthly service fee of $12.95. There are no setup fees or monthly minimums.

While in 2010 mobile payments became a talking point, in 2011 making and taking payments directly from your mobile phone looks set to be the future of commerce.

2. Location, Location, Location

Location-based services and marketing have seen a huge growth this year, especially within social media, with services such as Gowalla, Foursquare and SCVNGR. But they have yet to be taken up on a large scale bysmall businesses.

The launch of Facebook Places and Deals, however, could push location mainstream, as most small businesses already have some type of Facebook presence, and the network already has half a billion users. In 2011, location-based services will prove a powerful, relevant way to create a location-based loyalty program, offer specials and perks, and leverage verified checkins to attract new customers. Over the next year, businesses will be able to offer real measurable rewards (and not just “fun”) for consumers, pushing the trend into the mainstream.

Services like Yelp are now offering checkin offers for businesses, meaning that businesses can offer Yelp users special deals for checking in at their places of business. With checkins tied to Twitter and Facebook when a user checks in, it puts your business in front of a lot of eyeballs. This is just the latest example of how a small business can take advantage of location-based services to reach the masses.

Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, also recently revealed that the microblogging service is working on a “self-serve process to advertise on Twitter, where a local coffee shop can advertise on the service looking for Twitter users in the area.” When combined with the plethora of third-party Twitter apps available, it means small businesses could potentially reach a large slice of their target market and demographic.

Using location-based marketing to proactively deliver messages and reach potential customers based on their geographic locations will enable small businesses to increase foot traffic and profits. With services likeGeotoko now offering a way to quickly and easily build and measure location-based deals and promotions, it means creating a campaign needn’t be overly complex.

Partnering location-based incentives and marketing with mobile payments could prove to be a killer move for many small businesses in 2011.

3. Mobile Websites

In 2011, every website should include a mobile version, as consumers continue to shift their behavior to regularly using the mobile web. As mobile traffic increases exponentially, it makes sense for small businesses to craft mobile-friendly sites to ensure they don’t miss out on mobile traffic, and more importantly, sales.

Mobile and smartphone optimized web design will also be key to driving online sales, so now is the time to invest in designing your site for the mobile masses. For small business owners, considering your audience and user behavior for the lifecycle of your site is essential, and creating a professional mobile experience is key to this. Making this experience fast and efficient is an excellent way to improve your site’s effectiveness and make purchasing products as easy as possible.

Optimizing your website for mobile browsers no longer has to be a painful or difficult process, as there are a slew of services which make the task easier, including:

• WPTouch Pro is a powerful WordPress plugin that can be used to create rich mobile themes for iPhone, iPad, Andriod, Blackberry, Palm OS and Samsung touch mobile visitors, independent of your desktop theme. Prices range from $39 for a single license to $199 for the developer license.
• Mobify offers the ability to optimize and design your mobile site for thousands of mobile devices. It allows extensive customization and a plugin that automatically redirects visitors to the mobile version when using their phones to reach your site. There is a free version that you can use to get up and running quickly or switch to the pro plan, which offers custom branding, analytics, ad integration and more.
• Mofuse provides a platform that optimizes your site for more than 5,000 supported mobile devices with built-in analytics, SEO, automatic redirection and WYSIWYG editing. Plans start from $7.95 for the local/personal use to $89 for small businesses and $199.99 for the ultimate plan aimed at larger groups.
• Instant Mobilizer is an automated tool from dotMobi that takes any existing desktop website and transforms it into an enhanced mobile site. It resizes images, reformats text and inserts other mobile-friendly features to ensure your website works on any phone. You have to register your .mobi domain with one of their registrar partners, and Instant Mobilizer will take care of the rest.

With the mobile web estimated to overtake desktop Internet in usage by 2015, it’s time for small businesses to get ahead of the competition and cultivate a great mobile website experience now.

4. Small Business Apps

With more than 25 billion mobile apps estimated to be sold in 2011, up from 10 billion in 2010, the coming year looks set to be the year of the app.

Smartphone applications have changed the way many businesses operate, and small businesses will begin turning to creating apps that enhance the way customers interact with their products and services. These apps will also prove to be an affordable way to boost profits. There will be a distinctive shift from viewing apps as a fun buzz word to becoming an integral part of a small business’s marketing plan.

Having your business app front and center on a consumer’s smartphone is a tremendous marketing opportunity to improve customer service, attract new customers and open up the possibility of creating a revenue opportunity.

It’s important to note it may be wise to firstly make sure your website is mobile optimized before embarking on a dedicated app, as it will give you firsthand knowledge of building and refining a great mobile experience and effectively utilizing touchscreen navigation. You can then use your mobile website to graduate users to your native app to provide value beyond your regular desktop and mobile website.

Many applications have hit the market with no real strategy behind them, with many apps being deleted within 72 hours of being downloaded. It’s therefore important to identify the user case, define goals and create an app that provides real value. Ultimately asking “what do my customers want?” will enable you to decide if developing a native mobile app is the correct route for your small business.

For small businesses, where budgets are restricted, there are a multitude of options available, including DIY Tools, services such as iPhone App Quotes and dedicated developers such as those listed on They Make Apps.

These four trends are a look at how the mobile experience will shape small business plans in 2011. Let us know what you’d add in the comments below.

Read More :http://mashable.com/2011/02/12/small-business-mobile-2011

Read more: http://www.express.co.uk/money/view/228797/Tesco-to-accept-wave-and-pay-cardsTesco-to-accept-wave-and-pay-cards#ixzz1DwSOzhky

Description

Looking for a burrito joint open now? An Irish pub nearby? A gas station you can drive to before your tank hits empty? Yelp for your iPhone is here to help. Use us to search for places to eat, shop, drink, relax and play then read reviews from an active community of locals in the know.

FEATURES:

- Search for businesses near you using the iPhone’s built-in location finder
- Tap quick links to find nearby bars, restaurants, cafes and more
- Narrow your searches by ‘hood, distance, price, and what’s open now
- Browse reviews to read what’s great (and not so great) in your city
- Add Quick Tips, photos, and draft reviews for your favorite businesses
- Look up addresses and phone numbers for thousands of businesses, then call or map them from your iPhone
- Yelp does augmented reality with Monocle. Overlay business information onto the world around you

Yelp SupportApplication License Agreement

What’s New in Version 5.1.0

Make Reservations!

Yep, now you can book OpenTable reservations all without leaving the friendly confines of the Yelp app. Lookup your favorite spot, tap the handy “Make Reservation” button and seconds later, you’re set.

Screenshots

iPhone iPad

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/yelp/id284910350?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4#

Friend Lists

Just as important as always are friend lists, the feature which enables you to segment all of your friends in to groups and then assign privacy settings to each of them. While it may sound a bit excessive, separating out your Facebook friends into at least a few lists can be extremely valuable. An example setup would be having three friend lists: Friends, Family, and Professional. The three things to know about privacy settings are as follows:

• You can add each friend to more than one friend group
• Friend lists should be used like “tags” as used elsewhere around the web
• Friend Lists can have specific privacy policies applied to them

As we navigate through this quick guide, you’ll see why I recommended using your friend lists. While this isn’t the quickest step in getting yourself protected on Facebook, it’s a worthwhile one. If you want to modify your friend lists you can do so by visiting this page.

Checking In Places

There are three settings you should configure for check-ins if you are really into posting where you are as you travel around throughout the day. Visit the customize settings page by clicking here and then clicking on the link which says “Customize Settings”. The first thing you’re going to want to modify is the ability of your friends to check you into places without your permission.

Scroll down to where it says “Friends can check me in to Places” and click on “Edit Settings”. You’ll then see a window like the one pictured above pop-up. Click on the box on the right and select “Disabled”.

The only other settings you’ll want to modify possibly are the two pictured above. The first, “Places I check in to”, enables you to configure which of your friends can see your Facebook Places checkins. While it’s set to “Friends Only” by default, you may want to prevent some friends from seeing your checkins. If that’s you, click on the box on the right and click on “Customize” and select the friends (or friends lists) that you want to prevent from viewing your checkins. In the picture below I’ve illustrated selecting a friend list (“Journalists”) that I don’t want my whereabouts visible to.

Also, I suggest unchecking the box next to “Include me in ‘People Here Now’ after I check in” if you don’t want strangers to see that you’ve checked in at a place previously.

Remove Yourself From Facebook Search Results

Don’t want people to be able to search for you on Facebook? Sometimes people are tired of getting friend requests from everybody they’ve ever met. For those individuals, worry no longer! You can remove yourself from Facebook’s search results relatively easily. Navigate to the main privacy page and click on “View Settings”. Once there you’ll see the setting next to “Search for you on Facebook” at the top (pictured below). Click on the box on the right and select “Friends Only”. Now only your Facebook friends will be able to find you on the site.

Remove Yourself From Google

Sometimes you prefer not to show up in Google every time someone searches for your name. If that’s the case, you’ll want to turn of the public Facebook search results. First visit the Facebook privacy page and scroll down to “Apps and Websites” pictured below.

Next, scroll down to “Public Search” and click on “Edit Settings”. Next up, simply uncheck the check box next to “Enable public search”. Now you’re done!

Avoid the Infamous Photo/Video Tag Mistake

If you’re concerned that your family or professional contacts are going to see some random image that you’re tagged in, you may want to clamp down on your settings. In fact if there’s one setting I recommend configuring, it’s this one. Visit the main privacy page, click on “Customize Settings”, and then scroll down to “Photos and videos I’m tagged in” (pictured below). Click on “Edit Settings” and enter the people who you don’t want seeing your photos.

If you want to completely block everybody from seeing your photos you can select “Customize” in the settings drop-down and then select “Only Me”. You are now protected from the infamous drunk photo tagging!

Enable HTTPS

I can’t tell you how many people email us complaining that their account has been hijacked. This is a regular complaint that we receive. If you want to avoid having your account hijacked, one of the best things you can do is to enable HTTPS. While not in the privacy settings area, this will help you stay secure. First head on over to the account settings page then scroll down to “Account Security” and click on “Change”.

You can then check the box under “Secure Browsing”. While it may slow down your navigation, it will dramatically increase your protection.

Make Contact Info Private

Personally, I’m not a fan of giving everybody in the world access to my phone numbers, email addresses, or anything else that makes it extremely easy for them to contact me. That’s why I highly suggest customizing your privacy settings for your contact information. This is pretty easy to accomplish. Head back to the main privacy page and click on “Customize Settings” once again. Scroll down to “Contact Information” and customize your information, especially your phone number, email addresses, and home address if you were crazy enough to post that on your Facebook profile!

Avoid Embarrassing Wall Posts

If you happen to have one of those friends who loves posting embarrassing things to your wall, you may want to either block them from posting, or prevent others from seeing what they’ve posted. Head to the main privacy settings page once again, and then scroll down to “Customize Settings”. If you scroll down further you will see the settings pictured above under “Things other share”. These two settings will enable you to configure who can see wall posts published to your profile.

Info Available To Applications

While your friends may be addicted to FarmVille it doesn’t mean any game your friend plays should be able to access all your information. Head back to the main privacy area and edit your settings for “Apps and Websites” once again. On this page you’ll see a setting halfway down the page which says “Info accessible through friends”. Click on “Edit Settings” next to this and modify what you want to enable applications to view when your friends play a game on Facebook. The easiest thing to do if you want to block all information is uncheck every box.

Instant Personalization

While you may not be one of the people who has “experienced” Instant Personalization, it’s a service which lets select websites view your public profile information right when you land on their site. Yelp, Pandora, and a few other select partners have been granted the ability to view information about you in order to instantly customize your experience when you get to their website. While many people actually enjoy having this information revealed right away, many users are more protective of their information. If you fall into this category, you may want to turn off instant personalization.

Turning off instant personalization is relatively easy. On the applications and websites page that you are currently on, simply click on “Edit Settings” next to “Instant Personalization”. Facebook will then display a video explaining to you what the service is and why you should keep it enabled. Click on “Close” and then uncheck the box next to “Enable instant personalization on partner websites.”

http://www.allfacebook.com/facebook-privacy-settings-2011-02

The most obvious change is the ability of self-serve advertisers to publish the new sponsored stories ad format that we’ve previously covered. There are two types of sponsored stories for Facebook page administrators: “Like Stories” and “Page Post Stories,” both of which are pictured in the image below. Both are definitely interesting and I’m sure page administrators will be split testing these types of ads for campaigns beginning immediately in an effort to decrease their fan acquisition costs.

Landing Tab Selection

The other major upgrade is the ability of page administrators to select which tab they’d like visitors to land on when they click on the ad (pictured below). This is yet another thing for page administrators to split test in an effort to decrease the effective cost of each new fan.

Facebook’s Recirculation Of Users

The most incredible aspect of these upgrades, outside of the fact that advertisers get to split test their ads more effectively, is that Facebook is charging advertisers to recirculate users within its own site. It’s an absolutely genius system that we have discussed many times before, and it’s one that I personally have never seen executed so effectively by any large online property. Not even Yahoo, a company with one of the most impressions on the Internet, has figured out a way to charge advertisers for driving traffic to the search engine’s own properties.

It’s pretty straightforward: the more Facebook advertisers spend, the more impressions the social network gets on its site, and the more revenue the company generates. While the integration of off-site open graph objects, a topic I covered in a previous article, makes a lot of sense in the long run, Facebook should take advantage of the system they’ve devised for as long as possible.

So what do you think? Do you feel like spending some money on Facebook fan acquisition? Sounds like a great idea to me! Let us know what price you’ve been paying for fans in the comments below.

http://www.allfacebook.com/facebook-rolls-out-major-upgrades-to-their-ad-system-2011-02

With manufacturers lining up to stuff wireless NFC (near field communications–a three letter acronym you’re gonna have to get used to!) powers into seemingly every gadget, it’s time to face facts: Your plastic credit card is doomed.

BMW’s Connected Drive NFC car key

BMW is busy working on including NFC circuitry in its next-gen ConnectedDrive systems, on the premise that when you’re away from your car shopping or whatnot you take your keys with you–and they already often have wireless functionality to unlock your car’s central locking system. Plus, people often attach their home keys to a car key ring, and will thus have the BMW NFC fob handy even if they’re not using the car.

BMW imagines you’ll be able to open doors or gates (the way some workplace secure entry systems operate already), purchase a train ticket with your key fob–since it acts as a virtual credit card–and then use the fob to pass through the turnstile to the platform. BMW has even compiled an enticing video:

There’re only two downsides to this plan that we can see immediately: While the NFC keyfob is definitely a smarter key, it lacks some of the super-smart abilities of a smartphone. That means losing your keys is going to be even more of a pain in the ass, as you may not be able to “remote wipe” your data from the fob. Plus smartphone NFC may be more attractive to retailers than a key NFC, because they can peddle ads, apps, and loyalty card schemes into an app, rather than the display-less BMW keys.

LG hops aboard the NFC bandwagon

LG has announced it’s working on NFC from both ends of the problem–in smartphone handsets and in terms of the point-of-sale infrastructure needed to make the entire scheme work. It’s busy testing an NFC ecosystem in Europe, and is planning a full-scale roll out in 2012.

The good news for LG is that it might’ve worked out that the best way to really make this work financially is to get its claws on the infrastructure, so rather than building its ecosystem around LG phones, (meaning consumers would be locked out of using an LG-crafted NFC interface unless they bought an LG phone), its likely that competitor phones would work too. LG’s also planning on integrating the tech into TVs and business security systems.

Apple, Google, and Nokia

Google is building support for NFC interactions into its Android OS, and the Nexus S Google Android phone already has NFC circuitry inside. With Android rapidly accumulating smartphone marketshare, this is an important move.

Nokia has promised to build NFC technology into all the smartphones it makes from this year onwards, and since Nokia still retains the throne of the world’s biggest phone vendor, this is a vital component in pushing the technology into the mainstream.

It’s entirely speculative, but Apple may be building NFC support into its iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad for 2011. Rumors have been accumulating for months, but recent NFC-related job postings for Apple (one of the few ways we can gain insight into the plans of this secretive company) seem to support the notion. We’ve covered a lot of this news, and ourargument is that if any one manufacturer can push advanced NFC interactivity (including credit cards, ATM transactions, computer logins and next-gen shopping) into the mainstream it’s Apple. That’s due to its market penetration, the Apple “cool” cachet, and the fact that it’s already trusted by millions of iTunes subscribers with personal data and credit card details.

Existing NFC

NFC is already all around you, though you may not have noticed. Some hotels use NFC room keys (replacing the magnetic stripe ones, which replaced the punch plastic card ones, which replaced the physical key) as a means of convenience and security–since it can be tricky to “clone” an NFC key, versus a magnetic stripe one. The train ticket I used to commute to the office today is NFC–it’s identical to most printed card train tickets except there’s a thin loop of wire inside to act as an antenna, and if you squeeze it you can feel the grain-of-rice-like silicon chip in one corner. To get to the platform I merely had to pad my wallet up against a sensor, and when checking my ticket the guard was content to wave his scanning wand over my wallet without needing to see the physical ticket.

The future of NFC?

Who knows how far this tech may go? It could change shopping, many forms of credit card payments, PC logins, store loyalty systems and even stretch as far as advertising–how about a store display that changes to suit your tastes as it detects your NFC smartphone or keyfob when you walk through the door? Or a system that suggests shoes to match the dress you just bought at a nearby store?

The technology is certainly gaining steam and could easily become a mainstream phenomenon in the developed world by late 2012.

http://www.fastcompany.com/1723276/companies-battling-to-make-your-nfc-wireless-credit-card-dreams-come-true

http://www.mobilebehavior.com/2011/01/13/pose-for-photo-based-social-shopping/