NFC payments are at their peak, according to analysts IT research firm Gartner Inc. Unfortunately, that peak is the "Peak of Inflated Expectations" on the firm's annual "hype cycle" report. Next stop? The "Trough of Disillusionment."

Gartner released its yearly "Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies" report for 2011 and placed NFC payments with other technologies that are receiving an inordinate amount of attention versus their perceived benefit to business. This is the first year NFC payments has appeared on the report. According to the report, NFC payments are still five to 10 years away from mainstream adoption.

According to Gartner's announcement of this year's report, the annual Hype Cycle analysis tracks new technologies and innovations through the common patterns of overenthusiasm, disillusionment and eventual realism. This year's report includes more than 1,900 technologies grouped into 76 distinct Hype Cycles, the company said. The Hype Cycle Special Report is issued every year to track technologies and provide guidance on when and where organizations should adopt them for maximum impact and value.

This year's report includes several mobile technologies, along with NFC payments, that will likely figure into the future of mobile payments.

"Mobile technologies continue to be part of most of our clients' short- and long-range plans and are present on this Hype Cycle in the form of media tablets, NFC payments, quick response (QR)/color codes, mobile application stores and location-aware applications," said Gartner VP and fellow Jackie Fenn in a statement.

Fenn said the report is useful to IT professionals, providers and investors for a variety of reasons.

"Many Gartner clients use Hype Cycles as part of their technology-planning process, often drawing from multiple Hype Cycles, augmented with industry- or company-specific topics to create their own Hype Cycles and Priority Matrices," said Fenn in the statement. She added that technology providers use the report to understand the likely market reaction to their products and services while investors watch for rising technologies to try to catch them before they peak or before they move into mainstream adoption.

This year's Hype Cycle chart can be found at Gartner's website.

For more on topics like this, please visit our Trends/Statistics research center.