Replacing the wallet means having all cards, including loyalty, gift, and coupon cards that people carry in their wallets, readily available to make purchases, get discounts, and redeem loyalty points through Google wallet. For a list of other phones and up-and-coming products that are NFC equipped click here.

Making Google’s vision a reality is aided with the partnerships of Fist Data, Sprint, Citi, and Mastercard, among others. Google is currently working with other financial organizations to make all card providers available on Google Wallet. NFC is a lot like a contactless payment card, but included in your phone. It also acts like Bluetooth but used at a closer range. By touching two devices together, either mobile-to-mobile or mobile-to-NFC smart tag the device can collect information.

There are five ways that NFC could have an impact in the world of mobile:

1. Contactless Payment (like the current cards)
2. Transportation (replacing smart card swipe)
3. Health Care (Provides instant patient information, and instant updates after doctors visits)
4. Smart Objects (NFC tags could be scanned to get more information about whatever object had the tag)
5. Social Media (exchange profile information when meeting someone in a physical space)

NFC is great for everyone

NFC is becoming an extremely valuable tool for marketers and consumers alike. This technology bridges the gap of the online and offline worlds. For marketers, the rich information that can be gleaned from transactions made by customers is invaluable. Marketer could precisely target their markets equipped with the knowledge of what their markets are buying on- and offline. This information gives marketers insights to what a customer would purchase and what products would be relevant for a customer to purchase in the future. For consumers this valuable information not only creates the ability to track where they made a purchase, but also provides an itemized list of what they bought. This information could be used too for a couple more things including tracking personal trends of specific items purchased, making specific budgets and logging how many calories they consumed during a month.

Marketers and the like, keep your eyes and ears open about NFC, especially because sales through NFC are projected to possibly hit $50 billion by 2014.

Here’s a good example: Café Rio.

For those of who are not familiar, Café Rio is a popular Mexican restaurant that delivers the best burrito around. Turns out that I was craving one yesterday while I was out. I hopped on their website using my iPhone and I got this beautiful user interface. It gave me 8 quick navigation options, one of which was “Order by Phone.” I was then able to select my state and city easily, and clicked to call. Bam. Easy Schmeesy. It took me less than 2 minutes to complete the whole process.

So what do mobile visitors want to see when they come to your website?

Things to include on your mobile site

• Your logo
• An address that people can click and get directions
• A picture of your location
• A map
• A phone number that people can click to call

o   Use this code: <a href=”tel:8016102500”>Click to call: 801-610-2500</a>

• Bulleted list of services and service areas

Just remember, think like your user.  Ask your users and customers what they want to see on your mobile site. 9 times out of 10 when you do this, you’ll get this list above.

Lastly, here’s an example of a good mobile page. Notice that all of the things a user wants out of a local retailer is present and easy to get to and use.

The tide has turned

Last quarter, smartphones out sold PCs 101 million to 92 million. Is this actually the beginning of a new mobile era? I think so. With all these mobile devices out there, it’s essential that you consider your web strategy. Is your website ready for mobile users? Most likely it is not, but then why would it be? The internet has been viewed on desktops and laptops from the beginning. Mobile devices with real browsers have only been popular for the last three years, and for the most part, they can view your website in its entirety with no problem.

It’s time that mobile gets your attention

It’s becoming more common when I visit websites on my phone that the website recognizes the mobile browser. It then morphs the website into something much nicer for me to use on my small screen. Making this change to your own website can be a great way to connect with the mobile user. Consider emphasizing the most crucial information on your site, like:

• Key service or products
• Quick elevator pitch
• Hours of operations
• Contact information

One of the best ways to get the most out of a mobile website is to focus on just a few things that are most important, like contact information.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that if someone is searching for you on their phone, there is a very good chance they will call right away. Now that mobile devices are outselling PCs, it’s time to make sure your website is ready for droves of mobile traffic.

Last year, there were 1.5 billion local searches made from mobile devices.

Information Week reported that there are over 61.5 million smartphones in use today.

What does that mean for your business? Potentially it means lots more customers, but most local businesses have not taken advantage of this huge opportunity for exposure to consumers on their geographic area.

Launching a mobile-marketing strategy is a fairly complex process so get started off on the right foot by going through these three points.

Mobile-compatible versus Mobile-friendly

You probably don’t think there’s a difference. There is. I promise.

The wide range of mobile operating systems, mobile browsers, and smartphone manufacturers has created a compatibility nightmare that web designers haven’t known since IE6. Following the tips below will help ensure that your smartphone visitors get a design that delivers a consistent, positive experience.

Mobile Compatibility

Mobile compatibility basically means that when somebody visits your website on a smartphone, they see basically the same thing that they see when they visit it from their computer.

Tips for making your website mobile compatible:

• Don’t use Flash! In addition to being heavy for loading times, many smartphone devices do not support Flash which means your visitors see nothing! For animation and interactivity, use a JavaScript library like jQuery combined with HTML5 to achieve virtually the same effects as Flash.
• Validate your code at W3C
• Use tools like ySlow and PageSpeed to see how you can speed up your load times (this will help for desktop browsing too)
• Compress your images using Smush.it. Images slow down any site, but are especially heavy for smartphone users. Smush.it can cut your loading time in half in some cases, and usually by at least 30%.

Considerations for making your website mobile compatible:

• Mobile compatible websites still don’t offer an ideal user experience. Lots of zooming in and out for your mobile visitors.
• Mobile visitors generally aren’t interested in your entire website while on a mobile device so they may back out of your website because information is harder to find on a smartphone.

Mobile Friendly

In contrast, a mobile-friendly design is a completely separate design that only appears for people who visit your website from a mobile phone. A mobile-friendly design should make it easy for smartphone users to access and use information about your company and services.

Tips for making your website mobile friendly:

• Use a tool that identifies when a smartphone or Mobile User Agent accesses your website
  • For PHP sites, something like this
  • For WordPress, WP touch PRO mobile browser plugin
• Validate your code using W3C’s mobile code validation
  • Warning! This tool is brutal. Be prepared to score 0% your first time through
• Remove images from your mobile design as much as possible
• Test your design using all of your friends’ smartphones

Considerations for making your website mobile friendly:

• This isn’t generally very cheap unless you’re using WP Touch PRO in which case it is dirt cheap. Yet another reason to develop on WordPress.

Mobile browser, device, and operating system combinations are virtually endless. So don’t expect your website to look exactly the same on every device or every browser. The important thing is that your smartphone visitors can still navigate your website in a way that allows them to find what they need and contact your business.

Example of a mobile-compatible website: Knotty Alder Cabinets

Example of a mobile-friendly website (visit in a mobile browser): Salt Lake City Bankruptcy Attorney

“It doesn’t benefit the user at all. When I check in on Places I don’t get points,     unlock badges or become the mayor. Although once you check in the businesses     name is plastered on your wall which is essentially free advertising. It is way too lopsided to the benefit the business not the user.”

Well, I’m writing this to let everyone know I was wrong, very wrong. Facebook Places has actually saved me money. Turns out saving money is more valuable than becoming the Mayor of a business that doesn’t care, sorry Foursquare.

Why I am singing a different tune…

A few weeks ago I was shopping with my wife at our local mall. When walking into Macy’s I saw a sticker on the door claiming that if I checked in on Facebook Places I would get a special deal. So, for the second time ever I decided to check-in and boom, I actually got a coupon for 20% off! I was surprised and excited to see such a big discount. Then I did exactly what anyone with a great discount in hand would do, used it.

the result was that I spent about 40 minutes in Macy’s shopping around to find something that was worthy of my newly acquired coupon. Eventually I found some cool shoes for my wife, she can’t have enough shoes. The check out process went very smooth, the cashier was trained on how to use the Facebook coupon before I presented it to her.

Side note, Foursquare could learn a bit about training from Facebook. A while back I tried to use a coupon at Chili’s from Foursquare. This coupon was a collaborative effort between Chili’s and Foursquare and the manger rejected it saying he had never heard of it. Lame sauce…

Facebook is offering 4 types of deals:

1. Individual Deals: Offering a one-time deal when launching a new product or wanting to clean out inventory or just want to offer a gift with a purchase.
2. Loyalty Deal: These deals give specials to people that have checked in a certain number of times. These can be set to no fewer than 2 clicks and no more than 20.
3. Friend Deals: This a great deal for those checking in with groups of 8 or more. These deals can build even more exposure for your business because in order to claim your deal, your customers need to introduce what you have to offer to their friends and family.
4. Charity Deal: These deals donate to a charity of your choice in an amount of your choice whenever anyone claims your deal. Its a great way to show that you are interested in more than making money.

These types of offerings give social media immediate monetary value, which to be honest is lacking. I am excited to see social media and big businesses coming together in this way, by that I mean saving me money. It makes it easy to look forward to the bright future of social media.

Introducing CitrusBlast

To help small businesses get ahead, we’re offering a complete package to take care of all the hard stuff. We start off by creating a local optimized microsite, which acts as a sort of internet billboard for the local business owner. It’s designed specifically for every business to drive customers. We then mix in our experience with maps optimization and organic search optimization to help businesses show up in local searches.

CitrusBlast even includes a mobile version of the custom microsite to take advantage of all those beautiful mobile searchers out there. With 50% of connections to the internet coming from mobile devices, it’s more important than ever for every local business to cater to those customers. CitrusBlast makes it easy.

It means more customers

Everyone always wants to talk about “presence” and “impressions,” but we want to talk about customers. CitrusBlast is the easiest way for local businesses to get online and get those customers. Have a website? Great! Don’t have a website? That’s okay, too. We’ll handle it.

Despite the fact that Mobile is the fastest growing marketing medium (even faster than social media), only 61% of the Fortune 500 say they have mobile strategies on the way. Why is this figure not 100%? Imagine all the people who work and do not sit in a cubicle all day long – construction workers, teachers, firefighters, police and so on. If you are a large business, why would you not want to reach your potential by being mobile ready?

Currently, in the United States, almost 1 out of 5 cell phone subscribers use smart phones. This means that there is already a mobile internet market of 51 million consumers. Let’s be conservative and say that 80% of the US population has mobile internet access by 2013 – that is 200 million consumers – a growth of 150 million in 3 years!

My company has an awesome mobile friendly site. Google also does a great job with their mobile version of their site.  I hope to see more mobile formatted sites, especially from the Fortune 500. This will likely be a movement to originate at the smaller up and comers and make a dent in the mobile web.