I'd like to text the world a Coke

Coke is in the business of selling delicious colored sugared water -- in volume. Makes sense that they would focus on SMS, which billions of people can utilize. Still, it points to some of the issues with a cool, futuristic NFC infrastrucutre: in the early days, there is no economic benefit to have multiple options (e.g. NFC via smartphones and physical credit cards and cash, etc).

Which is why Coke and Starbucks and the low-cost Square service are necessary. They help to fund the infrastructure, reduce the costs, the risks and increase awareness of using our mobile devices in place of wallets.

Atlanta-based Coca-Cola has hundreds of these vending machines in place in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Great Britain through a partnership between a Coca-Cola bottler and Ericsson.

Consumers can use SMS or cash to pay via the machines.

There is no need for registration or to download an app.

When consumers use SMS to pay, the cost of the purchase ends up on their mobile phone bill.

“We are going to consider this for other countries as well,” Mr. Busk said.

The challenge is that the machines do not make economic sense unless they do not accept any cash – which requires regular machine maintenance – and only accept credit, contactless and SMS payment methods.

“We have 1.7 billion servings a day and a massive number are cash transactions, with vending a big area,” Mr. Busk said. “The challenge we face is that you don’t really get to a great economic advantage until you can safely pull all of the cash out that.”