By One of the coolest apps to showoff and simultaneously (at least for me) most useful apps around has to do with barcode scanning. Whether it’s he basic barcode scanner made by Googlers or something more advanced like Shop Savvy or Amazon’s App, it’s hard to deny the ability to scan a barcode and immediately tap into a wide range of information about a product is outstanding.
It goes further than that, too. Barcodes can be used for MUCH more… for example you could have an advertisement in a magazine which, when scanned, sends you off to a specific webpage associated with that particular ad. There are a wide range of possibilities and opportunities and Motorola wants in on the action – they’ve invested in a company called ScanBuy who have a product on the Android Market called ScanLife.
Here is an intro video from the ScanLife website – but you’re probably already familiar with the process:
Has Motorola made this investment simply because they think it has potential on its own? Or do they have intentions of creating an application to bundle with Motorola Android Phones and MOTOBLUR that further benefits them monetarily? I would assume the latter… if you already had a barcode scanning app by default you’re much more likely to try it and keep it rather than seeking an alternative.
We’ll keep an eye on ScanBuy, ScanLife and Motorola’s activity with the company. If you were Motorola, what would you do?
[Via Press Release]
One cool / fun thing you can do with bar codes: http://stumbl.es
The problem with ScanLife, is that the format is proprietary and all scans go through their servers and are associated with your account.
They sell this information to 3rd parties.
ScanLife reads all kinds of barcodes and none of them are proprietary. Not sure what DarkFox is talking about. They use an “indirect” system which looks up the code location on a server, but there is nothing they get which they can sell to 3rd parties.