Near Field Communication, also known as NFC, brings that wizardry to life. Armed with an NFC-enabled mobile phone in place of a wand, the average Joe can now make purchases, score vouchers, stream music, watch videos, update Facebook and download information simply by waving his or her phone across an NFC touch-point. If the success of Harry Potter is anything to go by, it’s going to be big.

Potential employers, clients and dates are all Googling your name. BrandYourself, a new website launching Thursday, helps make sure they find what you want them to.

The website guides you in search optimizing the links you want to push up in Google results for your name.

Australians visited Facebook 6.2 billion times in 2011, making an average of 1.6 visits per day per person to the social networking site.

However, consumers are still wary of brand engagement via social media platforms, according to a report from Experian Hitwise.

“Social networking activities continue to attract some of the most frequent conduct among all online activities. Close to half of all online Australians browse others’ social networking profiles on a weekly basis, or more often,” said Nielsen APMEA research director Melanie Ingrey.

Aussies have given their seal of approval to advertising on mobile phones, according to a recent study, which revealed most are equally as comfortable with mobile ads as those on TV or online.

The study conducted by inMobi found that three in five Australians are as comfortable, or even more so, with advertising delivered through mobile web or mobile apps compared to other forms of advertising.