Cities with these stickers already spreading through them include Las Vegas; Madison, Wisconsin; and Charlotte, North Carolina, as well as Portland and Austin, which’ve been with the program for a slightly longer. What the groups involved hope this service will do is make the process of both checking in at locations as well as getting and distributing deals, coupons, and etcetera much easier to engage in.
Bernardo Hernandez, senior director of consumer marketing for Google has made comments on the situation, noting that Google is considering these NFC-enabled stickers to be an integral part of their outreach efforts (in Austin, at least,) with “local” businesses. Because “20% of all searches on Google are for local information,” Hernandez is hoping that NFC technology delivered by Smartag smart stickers will tie Google into the exchange between businesses and their customers implicitly.
