Stores Clueless About Mobile Barcode Scanning Applications?

Stores Clueless About Mobile Barcode Scanning Applications?

With the rise of app-laden smartphones like the iPhone and Google's Android OS, now on T-Mobile's G1, many penny-pinching shoppers have downloaded barcode scanning applications onto their mobile devices. These apps allow consumers to compare the prices of merchandise on a store's shelf to competing stores in the area just by taking pictures with their smartphone's camera. The prices are instantly retrieved and displayed on the mobile phone so consumers can know before they buy if they're getting a good deal.

Although consumers may be catching on to this barcode-scanning trend, some stores are still in the dark. For example, a Target store in Michigan recently requested a shopper to stop scanning merchandise, saying it went against store policy. The customer reported the event to the application's makers, Big in Japan, whose app Shop Savvy is a popular download for Android handsets.

Big in Japan called the Target store in question and spoke to the manager, who indicated that she was not aware of the policy. We also contacted Target's corporate headquarters to confirm Target's policy, or lack thereof, but we first had to explain the application to the company representative. They had never heard of such a thing before! (As it turns out, Target has no policy whatsoever on barcode scanning their merchandise.)

The same customer also noted they had visited Sam's Club, where they demonstrated the application to a store employee who seemed "confounded that such technology even existed," wrote the user.

Instant Price Match Is Retail's Future

Although this is just anecdotal evidence from one customer, it's entirely believable that without concrete store policies in place, you're going to encounter rogue employees here and there who have no idea what you're doing and will ask you to stop.

On the flip side, stores that do get hip to this trend may decide to implement store policies that ban scanning, once they realize that customers could discover their high prices. A post on AdLab for example, a blog about advertising and marketing, suggests retailers do just that. They also recommend retailers should consider investing in a a cell phone jammer. They even provide a "No iPhones on Premises" sign for printout.

That doesn't seem to be a very proactive way of dealing with the technology. In fact, it reminds us of how both the music and movie industry attempted to quash the pirating of songs and films: they just tried to make it stop. Instead of going a route destined for failure and trying to shut down barcode scanning altogether, retailers could choose to embrace the trend. They could offer easy-to-find barcodes on their promotional items with signage encouraging customers to compare the price instantly with other stores in the area. They could make barcode scanning the new advertising circular.

Hopefully, stories like those of the Shop Savvy customer will remain isolated incidents and no other store employees will bother customers looking to save money. If you've used barcode scanning applications and have experiences to share, please let us know in the comments.

Yahoo To Relaunch Launchcast Next Year With CBS Radio

Ed: Yahoo provides distribution, gives up content and ad sales.

Yahoo To Relaunch Launchcast Next Year With CBS Radio

Yahoo continues to outsource lots of businesses it previously built and maintained directly. Especially in music - In February they shut their subscription music service, and in September they announced a deal to allow full song playbacks through the Rhapsody service.

Next up is Yahoo’s radio product, http://music.yahoo.com/launchcast. The site today, which draws 3 million monthly unique visitors says Yahoo, allows users to listen to music based on preferred genres and artists. But Launchcast is limited only to Windows users on Internet Explorer, shutting out a large percentage of the Internet.

Next year they’ll shutter the service and relaunch with CBS Radio, much as AOL did earlier this year. CBS provides streaming for 144 owned radio stations, as well as providing some Internet-only content.

CBS will also take over ad sales for Launchcast, offering advertisers both display, video and audio ads...

Yahoo Ties Up With CBS To Save Streaming Radio Service

Yahoo has turned to CBS to help keep its LAUNCHcast streaming radio service alive. As part of the new partnership, CBS Radio will provide the player and handle the ad sales for LAUNCHcast, and various CBS (NYSE: CBS) stations will be available on Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) Music. Yahoo will also incorporate more radio content throughout its news and sports portals. It's the latest move in Yahoo's strategy to "completely open" its music operations to other services: the company recently launched an enhanced music search service with Rhapsody (the same company it offloaded its premium music subscription business to in February). 

Yahoo started shifting the focus away from LAUNCHcast late last year, plagued by the higher royalty fees that threatened to shut smaller Webcasters like Pandora down. Michael Spiegelman, head of Yahoo Music said CBS came courting at the most opportune time: "We didn't want to scale down or put up a lot of barriers with LAUNCHcast, but the economics of online radio had changed. It made sense to have a partner like CBS Radio ... They've made the investment in the infrastructure, the platform and the sales force to operate in a sustainable way."

CBS Radio's ad sales expertise is a big plus: it has a 1,600-member sales team, can sell ads on national and local levels, and has a vested interest in TargetSpot, the ad technology firm that can serve hypertargeted ads into various types of streaming media. CBS also has experience with a partnership of this size, as it merged its online radio network with AOL's back in March. 

Just How Stupid And Poor Are MySpace Users, Exactly?

If you thought Randall Stross’ attack on Tesla yesterday was in poor taste, wait until you read what Michael Wolff has to say about MySpace. In a dinner interview with BusinessWeek columnist Jon Fine, Wolff says:

…if you’re on MySpace now, you’re a [expletive] cretin. And you’re not only a [expletive] cretin, but you’re poor. Nobody who has beyond an 8th grade level of education is on MySpace. It is for backwards people.

That’s just part of a much longer interview in which Wolff goes into detail on exactly why he thinks MySpace will go the way of AOL. He also makes some blatantly incorrect statements, such as “All of the growth now in MySpace is international,” which is incorrect. In the last year MySpace has grown about 10% in the U.S., adding 7.5 million monthly unique users to a total of 76.4 million. Non-U.S. users have grown from 45 million to 54 million, a 17% increase. (source: Comscore)...

Michael Wolff's Calm, Reasoned Analysis Of MySpace, And The "Cretins" That Flock To It

Posted by: on December 01

Part of writing my latest column required interviewing Michael Wolff, a friend and the author of the new Rupert Murdoch bio “The Man Who Owns The News.” After some negotiation, the interview took the form of a lengthy discussion-cum-argument. Sort of like what we do sometimes for this outfit, only with dinner and at much greater length.

Portions of what we discussed were entertaining enough—at least to me—to warrant posting here. In excerpt below, which is lightly edited for clarity and profanity, Michael and I argue over the value and prospects of MySpace.

Michael Wolff: MySpace. They [meaning News Corp] know they have a huge problem. They’re quaking in their boots about MySpace. It always was a little rustling when I was there, there was this rustling—

Jon Fine: What do you identify as the problem?

MW: Facebook...

DeWolfe: Recession Hammering MySpace's Growth

MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe told a Reuters conference that following the worldwide financial crises, MySpace hasn't "really seen any impact, other than we think we could have grown even more than we have."

Michael Wolff: MySpace And Its Braindead Users Are Going To Zero

BusinessWeek's Jon Fine takes Rupert Murdoch tell-all author Michael Wolff out for dinner. Michael then reveals the secret he didn't put into the book: why Murdoch's News Corp (NWS) is trying so hard to ditch MySpace: