NFC (Near Field Communication) is an industry standard for communication between mobile devices as well as between mobile device and peripheral hardware, for tasks as mobile payments or controlling mobile functionality by area, or by proximity to some other device (see Samsung TecTile sticker for a cool use case by Samsung).
Note that NFC and Bluetooth are not the same technology (see the difference between the two here).
While it seems as a promising standard, adopted by most new mobile devices, iPhone still doesn't. Which makes it a bit difficult if you want to implement a generic application with communication between devices, or between device and hardware, and the device might be iPhone. Applications in that domain might be games (e.g. a bingo game that invites all devices in the room to participate, without a need to "register" or "know" the arranging server domain), broadcast communication in a closed environment (bus, train, airplane) and of course mobile payment.
As an alternative to NFC, some companies have proposed the interesting idea of using un-hearable, ultrasound, sound waves communication, companies like Brazilian startup NearBytes, Microsoft and others more. Idea is to use modern mobile device abilities to receive and to play inaudible signal (>18kHz), supported for example by iOS and Android.
(Read more about NearBytes here).
I came to this recently while following Israeli startup HopOn, presenting a working system for transportation mobile payment based on acoustic signal broadcasted by a small hardware device on the bus. Their technology seems promising and is already working in some bus lines in Tel-Aviv. See their marketing piece here, it's in Hebrew but you don't really need to understand Hebrew to follow it.
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