Those that read the ReadWriteWeb series on mobile payments know that I have never really been all that high on NFC. To me it is a curiosity that I keep track of because the technology is extremely interesting. The ability to tie a mobile wallet to a physical retail space through NFC has some disruptive opportunities and could be a game-changer in how money flows from one place to another.

"At the same time, it is hard to ignore that NFC is not yet a leading differentiator while customers shop for new phones (most are simply unaware)," wrote Cherian Abraham at Drop Labs today. "Solutions outside of payments that leverage NFC are still maturing (e.g. authentication, access control, discovery and media sharing to name a few)."

Abraham is right. Outside of payments, there is a significant development community working on NFC related material. One of the cheekier uses was announced today. Something called "Sound Pound," which " lets you share an audio greeting (a Sound Pound) with friends just by touching phones. It's like a fist pound (or a high five) with sound!"

Honestly, I cannot tell if this is a step back or a step forward. It reminds me of some of the first popular iOS apps that did nothing but make fart noises.

Sequent on NFC "Myths"

Companies like Sequent, a NFC software maker, have a stake in seeing NFC rolled out to more than just payments. Sequent's team shared some thoughts on what CEO Drew Weinstein believes are the "myths" about NFC.

Here are Sequent's myths with my reaction to each.

The mobile wallet is important: "Google Wallet is the predominant storyline in the NFC dialogue, but NFC isn't very interesting if it just serves to recreate a physical wallet on a phone. Digital wallets are simply one kind of mobile app, and NFC only becomes a dynamic technology when it goes beyond the wallet and is applied to all apps. NFC needs a more consumer-centric approach, one that offers people a variety of NFC-enabled apps that make their lives easier."

• Reaction: I actually agree with this one. Mobile wallets at this point are some kind eclectic choice by some technological early adopters. I do not have a mobile wallet and do not expect to have one for some time, whether that revolves around NFC or some other technology. My experience is probably closer to the consumer experience than what Google, MasterCard and the banks would like you to believe.

Payment is the best use case to drive adoption of NFC technology on mobile devices:
NFC is really a technology solution looking for a problem: "Those same [banks and payment processors] parties have not been successful in defining the commercial and operational dynamics of mobile payments, due to friction with mobile network operators (like Verizon) and operating system owners (like Google). Merchants have also been slow to install the new payment terminals needed for NFC. This offers a huge opportunity for non-payment NFC use cases - such as ticketing (like movies or concerts), transit, access control, and tag-enabled advertising and promotion - to lead the NFC mobile consumer adoption curve."

• Reaction: This is the top-down approach to NFC and mobile payments. Really, is user behavior going to change just because the large corporations of the world start brow beating people to use NFC? No. Adoption is going to have to start from the infrastructure layer, not the app layer and that means more use cases for NFC outside of the payment arena.

NFC is really a technology solution looking for a problem: "NFC solves a very real problem - enabling mobile apps to interact in the physical world. Technology is about removing friction, making things more intuitive and enriched. The ability to bring two NFC-enabled devices together to allow instant, secure and auditable data exchange is not trivial."

• Reaction: While Sequent posits this as a myth, I actually agree with the statement. I do not think that payment delivery needs a fundamental overhaul. Nor do I think NFC is an absolute must-have technology that bridges the digital and physical worlds. It is the fringe benefit of technological growth, not a quintessential piece of a digitally connected world. As a professional early adopter, I will likely have NFC and use it in a variety of use cases. As a consumer, I am not sure I realized that NFC solved a problem until I have the solution actually in my hand.

Overall, NFC will likely be a common technology that is prominently used within the next three to five years. That has more to do with the fact that companies and payment processors will start to adopt it and push it on consumers than any real consumer groundswell in which users realize they absolutely must have NFC and have it right now.

Note: This story has been edited from its original version.

Banking officials are calling it the world's first ever social media-fueled run on banks, and officials say that the misinformation campaign may have been a deliberate attempt to destabilize Latvia amidst the ongoing European debt crisis.

Typically, news stories originate from several different information sources when they spread among social network users, but Orgnet.com's graphic of the Swedbank run shows all the information going back to one main source. Update: Orgnet.com has identified the main source in the graphic as Swedbank and its efforts to quell rumors on Twitter.

From the graphic: "The nodes are Twitter users, mostly in Latvia. Links are drawn between two nodes who RT'ed or @ messaged each other. The time period is December 6-12, 2011."

Twitter's rumor mill spinning out of control isn't a new story. But this appears to be the first time it disrupted a financial institution, which could result in serious consequences. According to a Swedebank representative quoted by Marketwatch, "authorities may bring legal charges against the persons spreading the rumors, as such activity is illegal in the country."

Once a few prominent blogs began reporting on it, the news spread like wildfire across Twitter and Facebook, where eager fans posted updates about the show and began making plans to attend.

By that point, the Internet-fueled rumor had found its way to the front pages of prominent blogs and music news sites like Gawker, Pitchfork, Gothamist and Huffington Post. Long after media outlets followed up and confirmed that the concert wasn't going to happen, several people on Twitter continued to chatter about it as though it was still on.

So how did this story morph from rumor into front page news so quickly?

Today's real-time, social media-fueled news cycle is partly to blame. So too, it would appear, is at least one spokesman for the Occupy Wall Street protest, who confirmed to reporters that the concert was on. The official website for the demonstration published a post at 12:13pm EST announcing that "Radiohead will play a surprise show for #occupywallstreet today at four in the afternoon." Even hours after the rumor had been denied by the band, the post was not updated or redacted.

As word about the concert began to spread on Twitter, people cited that post as an official confirmation of the show's existence. So too did bloggers, who began publishing the news, further propelling the social Web into a frenzy over the prospect of one of the world's most popular rock bands playing an impromptu gig for an anti-Wall Street protest. Over the course of several hours, Anonymous repeatedly tweeted that the show would be happening, and even offered up a link to a livestream the concert.

By 4:00pm Eastern Time, the concert had not begun, even as some fans speculated that the band had only denied it to prevent a massive crowd from forming. Hours after protestor organizers fanned the flames of the falsehood, a spokesman for the protest finally came forward and said that they'd been "hoaxed", confirming that the whole thing was fake.

If nothing else, the affair served as an illustration of how, despite being revolutionary in some ways, our hyper-rapid, Twitter-fueled news cycle can sometimes get facts wrong and help disseminate them regardless. It's not the first time it's happened, nor will it likely be the last.

Update: The Village Voice has published an email that was sent to the Occupy Wall Street organizers from somebody claiming to be one of Radiohead's managers. This phony email appears to be the spark that ignited yesterday's confusion.

Lead photo by Alterna2.

Now, a new report is claiming that this won't be just any new Samsung Android phone, but the "Nexus Two," a follow-up to Googe's former flagship phone, the Nexus One.

But what a rumor it is!

Wimberly claims to have spoken to multiple sources who have confirmed that Samsung is indeed launching a "Nexus Two." Like its predecessor, this new Google experience phone is meant to be used as a reference device for developers (and Android enthusiasts, of course) as a demonstration of the latest and greatest capabilities found in Google's mobile OS. A reference device like this is necessary because the open-source Android can be modified by the mobile carriers and OEMs who choose to use it on their devices, often removing features they don't want to support (like Android 2.2 "Froyo's" Wi-Fi hotspot feature, for example). A reference device, however, has all features intact.

Unlike the original Nexus One, which Google attempted selling exclusively online to poor results, the rumored Nexus Two will be sold in retail stores. This makes sense, given Google's earlier admission that apparently, "many customers like a hands-on experience before buying a phone."

According to a report by UK site City A.M., this "Nexus Two" will arrive in UK retailer Carphone Warehouse's stores in time for the holidays, noted Wimberly. That would mean that this time around, the real "Google phone" may have a better chance at sales.

At Samsung's press event, we hope to hear what U.S. carriers will be offering the device stateside. Wimberly even goes out on a limb speculating that we may see the phone in Best Buy stores:

If you want to go really crazy with speculation, Carphone Warehouse is a 50% subsidiary of Best Buy, who will begin selling 4G wireless service through Clearwire soon. Guess who else is a big investor in Clearwire? Yup, Google.

We hope that's the case, but at this point, little is known. For new Samsung Galaxy S owners, the launch of an even better Android phone may be disappointing news. But that's the problem with all technology, to be honest. The minute you plunk down your cash, something better is announced.

$3 Billion?

Kara Swisher reports that on the financial side of things, it looks like the latest deal would include Microsoft paying several billion dollars to Yahoo upfront to take over its search advertising business. If this deal goes through, Swisher reports, Yahoo would also take over Microsoft's display ads business. Concrete numbers are still hard to come by, but 27/7 Wall Street reports that Yahoo would get $3 billion upfront and "will get 11% of the revenue that its searches provide after traffic acquisition costs in each of the first two years. In the third year, that figure would go to 90%."

As always, we will keep a close eye on this story as it unfolds. For now, there are still rumors, but they seem to be quite substantial, and a deal between Microsoft and Yahoo (though not a merger of the two companies) would definitely make sense at this point.

You can already store your photos on Picasa Web Albums (though the amount of free storage is very limited). However, once you pay Google, your Gmail storage and Picasa storage limits become one - so Google clearly has at least some unified infrastructure for doing some of the back-end work in place already. According to a document (PDF) unearthed by Google is Watching You, that is exactly what Google is planning to do with the GDrive.

Google has enough clout to take online storage mainstream. While this directly benefits Google, it will also benefit the cloud storage industry in general, as the big name behind the product will drive up the general comfort level with online storage.

There are, of course, numerous small and medium sized-companies that offer online storage in some form or another. The smartest ones integrate directly with your desktop, so that you can seamlessly move data between the cloud and your own machine. A large number of other services also offer backup services, though without directly integrating this with your desktop. While all of these offerings are interesting, none have really made it into the mainstream yet.

What the GDrive is Up Against

Google's biggest competitor in this business is most likely going to be Microsoft, which has just started its push for cloud computing and storage. With its Live Drive, Microsoft offers 25GB of storage to all of its millions of Windows Live users. But Microsoft wouldn't be Microsoft if it didn't also offer ten different online storage solutions that can't speak to each other. You can also use LiveSync to transfer data between your own computers, Live Mesh for syncing and online storage, and Office Live Workspace for managing and storing office documents. And these are just Microsoft's consumer products in this space.

If Google gets the GDrive right, it will be able to offer one single online storage solution that does all of what Microsoft's plethora of tools does, but through one unified user interface and service. If the descriptions of the GDrive that have surfaced over the last week turn out to be true, then Google wants to offer a solution for all your files, including documents, photos, and (interestingly) music.

If Google can also offer solutions to access these files on mobile phones (besides Android) and if it offers a good integration with the desktop, then it could surely become the company that takes cloud storage into the mainstream.

Now we just have to wait for the actual release of the GDrive...

Was MemoryUp a "Rogue" Application?

Whether or not MemoryUp actually destroyed personal data and spammed people's contacts, as it was said to have done, is unknown. However, it would have been difficult for it to have accomplished those things. The app required no special privileges to install, so it's hard to imagine how it could have accessed the data and email addresses or how it could have sent out the spam. Also, for what it's worth, the company behind the app adamantly denies the claims. Says Robert Lee, chief technical associate for eMobiStudio, "We are very disturbed by these reports. Whatever damage is out there has not been done by our product."

...Or a Victim of Community Backlash?

The truth about this application may be that it just wasn't very good, not that it was dangerous malware. Many comments about the app in the Android store (prior to the app's removal) and in the forums weren't about losing data but about how the app wasn't worth installing because it provided no real value to the user.

What's even more apparent, though, in reading through the posts and comments about MemoryUp, is that many members of the Android community seemed to have a grudge against the app's creator, Peter Liu, whose drive-by advertising in forum postings got under people's skin. "How many times are you going to advertise this on here?" wrote one user. Later, others bragged and joked about running the "Memory folks out of town." "Peter needs to get a life," said yet another user.

It stands to reason that a handful of Android community members decided to disparage the application to get back at the app's developer...but something like that could never be proven, only suspected.

Yet, if that was the case, those people inadvertently ended up hurting Android in the process. By raising questions about the safety and security of Android platform, they helped to spread "FUD" (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) about this new mobile OS. Even worse, these rumors make the iPhone's closed and "by approval only" model look like the safer, smarter choice when it comes to phones. But as anyone involved in the open movement will tell you, that is not necessarily the case.

Why would you like a Google Drive service? For the presumably very low price point (free?), for the ease of backing up important data or for the potential integration of stored data into other powerful Google services? There's lots of reasons to perk up your ears when rumors like this pop up.

GMail As Possible Home for GDrive

Gmail Product Manager Todd Jackson told Webware last week that:

"We know people's file sizes are getting bigger. They want to share their files, keep them in the cloud, and not worry about which computer they're on. Google wants to be solving these problems."

That's all well and good, and we know that Gmail already does a lot of storage. It could be the home from which a GDrive is spun out. But is there anything more solid than that?

Picassa Hints

Sterling also points to coverage last night on Google watchdog site Google Blogoscoped where a screenshot from Picassa offers the option to upload photos to "Google Web Drive." The conversation in comments on that post is quite interesting, as well, including a mention of what looks to us like a possible placeholder for storing photo albums in Google Docs and a mock-up screenshot of what one Blogoscoped reader thinks the GDrive product could look like.

Security Concerns

For as long as Google has been rumored to be building a GDrive product, there have been concerns about how solid the company's control over user data security is. From all too common cases of "oops, your GMail account vanished" to more than one of the company's own official blogs being hacked, there's something a little worrisome about the security of a Google Drive.

Just as important a set of concerns though could be around Google's incredible control over so much of our data already. The company has its fingers in so many pies that it's hard to believe it warrants more trust, just on principle.

It's a vexing situation. The potential awesomeness of Google services is incredible. The actual delivered value of new services is often disappointing. The company has committed relatively few offenses against propriety with its incredible power (China notwithstanding) but the potential for abuse is incredible.

Do you want a Google Drive? Do you believe one's really coming? What would you like it to do?

If Apple is really working on this, then we expect them to release it through a similar annual subscription model as Mobile Me. Chances are that Apple will also use the same SproutCore JavaScript framework it used for MobileMe. When Apple first discussed SproutCore, some already assumed that the natural next step for Apple would be a productivity app built around this framework.

Will the MobileMe Disaster Repeat Itself?

Given what a disaster the release of Apple's Mobile Me online email and calendaring applications was, we can only hope that Apple, if it really decides to go this route, will have learned from that experience.

A Taste of the Cloud iWork: 280 Slides

If you want a taste of what these online apps could look like, have a look at 280slides, a Keynote-like online presentation app that was developed by two former Apple engineers.

Rumors Gone Wild

Specifically, Noughton cites a rumor that Michelle Obama, wife of US presidential candidate Barack Obama, was caught on video tape hurling a racial epithet about white people. The rumor started on Larry Johnson's No Quarter blog. His source? "Someone in touch with a senior Republican" who knows that a "major McCain backer has a copy of the tape." Later, Johnson says he's learned more about the tape via "five separate sources who have spoken directly with people who have seen the tape."

Despite the clear lack of a credible source, the rumor had serious legs. From friend of a friend of a friend hearsay, to a mention on Fox News as "credible buzz," to Obama being asked about it by a reporter from the well-respectd McClatchy News Service. "So the story whirls around the echo-chamber of the paranoid, right-wing blogosphere, with the odd whisk from Fox News reporters, until it reaches hysteria," says Noughton. And though no tape has surfaced, damage has potentially been done.

Therein, perhaps, lies a danger in putting too much credence in the blogosphere and citizen journalism. At times having untrained eyes on the ground can be invaluable at getting the story reported, and sometimes citizen journos can beat the mainstream press to a breaking story. But when your sources are relying on rumors heard from friends, lending credence to those rumors by mentioning them in the mainstream press is toxic.

We've seen rumors run wild on the tech end have real-world consequences as well. Last May when Engadget erroneously reported that Apple was planning to delay Leopard and the iPhone, the company lost $4 billion in market cap in an afternoon. Even though Engadget quickly updated its headline and story when Apple denied the rumors and said their source (a memo) was a fake, the story was frozen in time on Techmeme and in people's RSS readers with the wrong information.

The Solution

With the rise of Twitter, mobile video blogging, and other tools of citizen journalism, the news cycle is now seconds. With news rolling in non-stop 24 hours per day, the continuous, Twitterized cycle doesn't leave much time for fact checking -- speed matters. But that's not the future that Noughton hopes for.

When rumors published and repeated without checking the facts can have far-reaching consequences -- like influencing voters in a US presidential election, or knocking $4 billion off a company's market cap -- accuracy should count for something. Noughton provides a moral for the tale of the phantom Michelle Obama tape: "If confronted with online rumours, investigate first, report later."