[IP] more on Interesting New Service
Begin forwarded message:
From: Ross Stapleton-Gray <ross@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: January 8, 2006 7:50:36 PM EST
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
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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