Mobile barcode roundup: Harper Collins 2d campaign and ShopSavvy update

Here’s two stories about mobile barcodes that caught our attention. HarperCollins is using 2d barcodes to provide extra content to book buyers, and ShopSavvy has released a significant update for its barcode application.

HarperCollins:

The idea behind this is really simple: by placing a mobile barcode on the back of a book, you can offer extra content to buyers as a value-added service. The book in question is a teen-aimed novel, scribed by an actor from that not-really-reality TV show The Hills. The application needed to scan the barcodes can be downloaded from the HarperCollins mobile site: http://m.harpercollins.com/

The campaign is powered by QMCodes, and HarperCollins has further adventures in barcoding lined up for future publications.

Via Publishers Weekly

From the story:

Susan Katz, president of HareprCollins Children’s Books, said that because “teens use their mobile phones for everything from texting to updating their Facebook pages; this is one more way we can offer them content to share with their friends.”

What we think?

We’ve seen this service already, from a service by Scanbuy on a book about digital branding. That service was a bit strange - the barcode connected you to the Amazon buying page for the book, which seems irrelevant since you need to have the book in hand for it to work. This idea of using the book as a medium to provide extra content is really good, and I predict we’ll be seeing a lot of this in the future.

ShopSavvy:

ShopSavvy is an Android app that lets users compare prices over the mobile Internet and check if a product is on sale elsewhere for cheaper. An iPhone version has been long-promised, but hasn’t appeared yet.

This update is version 3.5, called “Rodan”. It claims to support 1,000 new retailers in this version, along with 750,000 new products. The full list of updates (via TechCrunch) is as follows:

* More than 1,000 additional participating retailers
* More than 750,000 additional scannable products
* Faster barcode scanning
* Faster, more accurate product search
* Faster load times
* Faster animations
* WiFi and GPS setting retention
* Notification of whether or not an item is in stock or out of stock
* Improved battery life
* Optional registration
* Option to search by title if product is not found
* Google Product Search integration
* Ability to visit retailer Web sites inside or outside ShopSavvy
* Additional polish to user interface

[NERD ALERT] I love the name for this update! Big In Japan is the main company responisble for ShopSavvy, and it has maintained a theme based around the sort of giant monsters you see assaulting Tokyo in movies. “Rodan” is the name of one of these monsters - a huge, flying thingy.