Finally a 2D Breakthrough!

It finally happened. The standardization battle shifted. The tide changed. Scanbuy's Scanlife application will now be preloaded on all LG camera phones. For the past few years, 2D barcode companies have battled to get shelf space on camera phones to no avail. They won small battles like earning the ability to be downloaded over-the-air, but no one was able to convince a handset manufacturer to pre-install their software...until now. The problem with 2D barcodes is that no one knows anything about them. No one knows anything about them because they aren't prevalent. They aren't prevalent because no one has the software to decode them. However, all this is going to change. "It's one small step for Scanbuy, and one giant leap for the 2D barcode industry."

2D barcodes are nothing new to Japan or Europe, but they will soon be the next biggest marketing tool for brands in the US. Every brand wants their customer base to interact with their brands. Whether it's a Flash microsite or a video game, brands want consumers to spend time with them, play with them, fall in love with them. Be prepared to get barraged with campaigns that have a "snap" call to action. No longer will you have to send in a form to "enter for a chance to win," you'll just snap a photo. Want to add time to your parking meter, just snap. Want to buy movie tickets, just snap. Want to do anything, just snap. The sky is the limit!

You heard it here first, "some brand is going to leverage this technology so well it will change the whole way marketers look at 2D barcodes." The race has officially commenced.

Tagging Products on Facebook

Many many months ago, July 2008ish, I came up with an idea to tag products on facebook. I thought this could revolutionize the way brands and consumers interact on social networks. For example, if John Smith tags 12 Mountain Dew cans, he can get one free. It's hard to imagine that a large amount of people would be compelled to spend the time tagging their products without some form of incentive. However, assuming the products were tagged, it would transform them from flat images to clickable hyperlinks. So, if you clicked on a Snickers bar you can be taken to their brand page on facebook, snickers.com, or wherever the company choses. Essentially it would completely shift the way we interact with photos on facebook. User generated product placement is the term I coined to describe this idea. I can't figure out why it hasn't happened until tonight.

I predict that facebook is currently scanning its billions of photos with software that detects all major and relevant brands. e.g. Keystone, Budweiser, Pizza Hut, Pepsi etc... and plans to offer the a brand tag/hyperlink to the companies. Let's assume they cull through all the photos and find the Taco Bell logo 12 million times on facebook. I bet they'll establish a "price per tag" and offer it to Taco Bell. Taco Bell can then create promotions, coupons, and microsites that activate once a a facebook user clicks.

Time will tell if this revenue driving platform is currently being stirred in the facebook cauldron.