more on Interesting New Service

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Ross Stapleton-Gray <ross () stapleton-gray com>
Date: January 8, 2006 7:50:36 PM EST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] Interesting New Service

At 02:16 PM 1/8/2006, Ken Deifik wrote:
> There is a report that Toshiba is developing software that will allow
> allow people to take a picture of the bar code label of many
> products, send it to a related service and quickly receive back
> information related to the product.
>
> The data the service returns? From blogs. Yep, Toshiba will send back
> summary information on how many blogs gave the product positive and
> negative reviews. Related product information will also be displayed.

This is an application that's been evolving for over a decade; some  
background on the fundamentals and history of the space (going "from  
codes to content") is in a paper I wrote in late 2004 for CommerceNet:
http://www.stapleton-gray.com/cgi-bin/redirect.cgi/http:// 
zlab.commerce.net/wiki/images/8/8e/CN-TR-04-06.pdf
or http://tinyurl.com/c8fks

A number of scan-a-barcode-get-content plays were born and died  
during the dot-com boom; Dave Mathews, of CueCat fame, still holds  
some patents in this area, and a lot of aging data, and is looking  
for interested parties (if anyone is interested, e-mail me for  
contact info).

Scanning of 2-D codes with cell cameras has been happening for some  
time in Japan, and it's not much of a stretch to imagine parsing out  
1-D UPC and EAN codes similarly.

The paper above talks about both "primary" information (e.g.,  
information from the manufacturers, the "code owners") and ideas for  
markets for 3rd-party information (a la Toshiba's blog sources),  
suggesting that reliance on product codes as unique identifiers could  
standardize processes to the point of allowing, say, commercial  
syndication of product reviews by smaller parties; pooling, sharing  
and sale of "customers who bought X also bought Y" data by smaller  
retailers; and a variety of other services.  While I agree that 3rd- 
party data is interesting (I *do* want to know that 90% of the people  
who bought widgets prefer Acme brand widgets, and want to talk about  
it), it's pretty surprising that primary information is nowhere near  
as accessible as it could be, given all the demand, e.g., by smaller  
and particularly Internet-based retailers.

The research paper also addresses why what's happening with the  
infrastructure for RFID is very important to this space... for the  
first time, there's a "root" of sorts for product code-keyed  
information, independent of any commercial service like the failed  
dot-coms, or Toshiba.

Ross


----
Ross Stapleton-Gray, Ph.D.
Stapleton-Gray & Associates, Inc.
http://www.stapleton-gray.com
http://www.sortingdoor.com





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