It seems like just yesterday that I was singing the praises of mobile barcode operator JAGTAG. But it was actually the day before yesterday. The JAGTAG solution is brilliant in that it allows anyone with a cameraphone to make use of mobile barcodes – not just smartphones. And today global mobile barcode company Scanbuy has announced its own service in the same vein: “Scan & Send”
What’s the story?
The way Scanbuy usually works is through its mobile application, ScanLife. When you load ScanLife on your device, you can scan 1d or 2d barcodes by taking a picture of them through your camera. The app then decodes the information in the barcode, and your phone acts on that info.
But what if you’re one of the many millions of people who have cameraphones that aren’t high-tech enough to run an application?
This where the new service comes in. ‘Scan & Send’ works without having anything installed on the device. Users simply snap the barcodes and send them by mobil email to scan@scanlife.com – when the barcode arrives at this address, it is decoded on the ScanLife servers, and the result is emailed back to the users phone. It could be a clickable link, a picture, a voucher… anything really.
What we think?
Consider JAGTAG.
JAGTAG is a company that has been doing this same thing for quite some time now. It has quite a lot of success, and has some very high profile clients. I asked David Javitch, VP of Marketing for Scanbuy what the difference was between Scan & Send and JagTag. He offered two major differences, to which I can add a third. David explained that first of all, the Scanbuy option will work on all the standard 1d and 2d barcodes, not just a single proprietary option. JAGTAG only decodes JAGTAG barcodes – which can’t be used by ANY other system. ScanLife works with all the major standards both in 1D and 2D barcodes. Secondly, JAGTAG only works in the USA – whereas Scanbuy is operational all over the world.
But there’s another difference that seems notable to me – which is that JAGTAG works only with MMS, while ScanLife works only with mobile email. There are advantages to both. MMS is definitely compatible with almost every phone in existence – while mobile email may be less so. However, mobile email is still extremely widespread even amongst lower end feature devices… and it’s basically free. Where every single barcode scan from JAGTAG will cost you MMS rates (often around 25 cents, depending on your carrier), all that ScanLife requires is that you are on a 3G network. Even 2G networks can handle low data services like email.
This is interesting. I did pro’s and con’s for JAGTAG yesterday. Here they are in brief:
– the vast majority of people in the world have simple phones, so simple solutions like MMS really work
- JAGTAG is also very easy to use. No downloads, no applications. Just simple mobile functions that everyone is familiar with.
- unfortunately, MMS is slow and expensive and most people don’t like it.
– JAGTAG uses a propietary barcode format, which doesn’t help the already very fragmented mobile barcoding industry.
And this new service from Scanbuy keeps all the pros while ironing out the cons. What can I say? This is a really good service.
Tried this and all I got back was a WAP link. Kind of useless since I have don’t have the mobile web. Tried JAGTAG from SI and got girls in my phone.
JAGTAG – 1 ScanBuy – 0
Plus doesnt JAGTAG have email and twitter methods of entry along with MMS?
One has to also remember that the “high profile clients” in many cases in Mobile marketing are engaged in the campaign process by vendors offering free or at cost roll-out. Image recognition has been around for many years and just can’t get consumer buy in. Take a look at Mobot (www.mobot.com), who in 2006 had the Bee’s knees or a service, now it’s merely a ghost site/company.
Don’t get me wrong I think that the concept is great however the experience with Mobile has to be very simple and immediate. Just as Email is the killer App. for the DeskNet SMS is for Mobile.
I challenge JAGTAG and Scanbuy to release the results of any campaign?
Can the user be given the option to send the call to action via SMS (i.e. keyword to shortcode), MMS to shortcode or mobile email and then, depending on how they initiated the call to action, the content provider respond accordingly, i.e. SMS with SMS/WAP Push, MMS with MMS and mobile email with mobile email?