Google Wallet Eliminates The Traditional Wallet

Picture yourself walking up to the cash register at the grocery store to pay for your groceries and you pull out your large, overstuffed wallet. After about 5 minutes rifling through your wallet, you finally find your credit card. This happens to people all the time. In today’s society we have credit cards, points cards, pictures of our kids, old receipts, business cards, and all sorts of other stuff that causes our wallets to be super-sized.

With the integration of technology, Google has launched an alternative to this problem – Google Wallet. The promotional advertisement for Google Wallet features a clip of Jason Alexander in his role as George Costanza from Seinfeld.

Google Wallet eliminates the need for an overstuffed wallet by allowing you to keep all of your credit cards, points cards, etc. on your smartphone. When it comes time to check out at the cash, all you need to do is tap a payment button or scan a barcode at the point-of-sale machine. This is completely secure with the integration of the security enabled NFC chip or sticker.

Currently, the Android Nexus S is the only smartphone with an integrated NFC chip that will allow point-of-sale machines to securely read the digital wallet. However, there is a sticker attachment (similar to the one in the photo below) that can be placed on the back of the phone that is NFC-approved.

Personally, I think this is a great idea. All too often I have found that having numerous credit cards and points cards can result in a super-sized wallet that bulges out of my pocket. Google Wallet will be a great service, especially since the majority of people today have smartphones. Having everything all in the same place (in your smartphone) will not only prevent a large bulging wallet in your pocket or purse, but it will also keep you organized.

As for that advertisement that George Costanza picked up on the street pole, smartphones allow you to take pictures or directly enter the information into a memo pad on your smartphone, eliminating another unnecessary scrap of paper in your wallet.

Bottom line, Google has once again aided in developing the market by initiating an important advancement in mobile payments with Google Wallet. It certainly will be interesting to see how quickly society will adapt to this new technological advancement.