We are working on an Augmented Reality golfing application. Our plan was to launch with a specific sponsor, but for reasons that are likely to do with the economy we do not have a partner/sponsor for the application. If you have interest in sponsoring/partnering with us on our AR Golf App email me at sales@biggu.com. Here is a screenshot:
(note: ShopSavvy iPhone users can ignore this post)
When we submitted our application to Google’s Android Developer Challenge it was called GoCart. Our logo was the blue ‘cart’-like icon seen below. After we won the challenge T-Mobile asked us to change our name to something more ‘shopping’ oriented, they suggested ShopSavvy and we adopted the new name. However, we didn’t have time to change our icon before the official launch and stuck with the blue cart icon.
Soon afterward Google released their ‘icon design guidelines‘ for Android and after a STRONG recommendation from from Deutsche Telekom that we needed to change the blue cart into something that looked like a barcode. Evidently ‘ShopSavvy’ doesn’t translate into German so we decided to comply with Google’s icon design guidelines AND Deutsche Telekom’s request to include a barcode in the icon. The resulting icon was a 3D panel with a simulated barcode on it. The new icon was VERY unpopular as evidenced by scores of angry market comments, emails and blog posts. I blogged about it here.
When we were ready to launch the iPhone version of ShopSavvy we got lots of negative feedback about our logo. Everyone thought we needed something more compelling. More than 4 different designers worked on the project, but we never found anything compelling. We still didn’t have an icon by November 2nd – on November 3rd we were debuting ShopSavvy for the iPhone at the PayPal Innovate conference and HAD to have an icon for the demo. On the plane to San Francisco Rylan create a very simple tilted sticker with an edge peeled up. It began to grow on us and we decided that we would go with it for the demo. To launch ShopSavvy for Black Friday we had to go ahead and submit the app to Apple with the sticker icon. What do you think?
Our plan is to use the sticker icon on BOTH iPhone and Android (as well as WinMo and RIM). This means a third icon change on Android. The sticker doesn’t meet the Android design guidelines, but it would seem Motorola decided to abandon them for the Droid and Eris as well. Did you notice? I think it would be nice if we could have the same icon on all platforms and I think the sticker is the way to go. We want your feedback before we change. What do you think? Here are the icons side-by-side:
If you were watching TV last week (11/22-11/29) you would have been hard pressed to miss at least a mention of ShopSavvy. Here in North American ShopSavvy made appearances on CNN, CNBC, BBN, ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX and CW affiliates – more than 39 times! Here are just a few of the places you might have seen ShopSavvy:
The download rate of ShopSavvy on Android and iPhone is faster than one install a second – now I know why. Thanks for all the coverage! Remember to vote for ShopSavvy to win a Crunchie: VOTE HERE!
UPDATE: ShopSavvy for Android supports QR Codes. Read more here.
Lots of our users ask why ShopSavvy doesn’t read QR codes. The answer is twofold, a) manufacturers and retailers in the US and Europe don’t use QR codes and b) QR aren’t typically related to product identification. The simple answer is that QR codes don’t have much of anything to with shopping and ShopSavvy is all about shopping. There is no technical reason we can’t scan a QR code – in fact our scanning libraries already scan a QR code. The problem with QR codes is that they usually include a URL or contact info – information that ShopSavvy can’t really use. Let me give you some background.
QR codes are two-dimensional codes (as seen on the right) that were created by a Japanese company called Denso-Wave back in 1994 to track vehicle parts during manufacturing. Unlike one-dimensional barcodes that only contain eight to seventeen digits, QR codes can contain up-to 7,089 numeric characters, 4,296 alphanumeric characters, 2,953 binary bytes or 1,817 Japanese characters. This data storage was VERY important PRIOR to the Internet. QR codes were invented about the same time as the World Wide Web and as a result the value of having an ‘un-connected’ barcode that held significant data became less and less important. Sure QR codes proliferated in manufacturing, supply chain applications and shipping, but outside of Japan and Korea their use in consumer applications has been almost non-existent.
So why aren’t they popular in consumer applications outside of Japan and Korea? Largely because if you can scan a one-dimensional barcode with an internet connect device brands, manufactures, retailers and advertisers have more control. They can provide different information to consumers based on time of day, day of week, season, location of user and so on. With a QR code that must be printed they have no control – whatever data existed at time of printing is the data that will be in the QR code. Why would anyone bother to create a code that couldn’t mean different things for different people? You can’t put a price in the QR code – because prices change. You can’t put product recall data into the QR code – because product recalls happen AFTER printing of product packaging. Of course you CAN insert a URL into a QR code and direct a user to a webpage – but you can do the same with a one-dimensional code and almost 100% of products ALREADY have a 1D code. So why are QR codes big in Japan? I think the primary reason is that they can contain 1,817 Japanese characters (Kanji/Kana). Almost ALL mobile phones in Japan have the capability of reading QR codes. NTT Docomo established the de facto standard for encoding URLs and contact information – all using Kanji/Kana.
When manufacturers begin marking their products with QR codes we WILL include them in our system. For now “0″ manufacturers create QR codes for use in retail supply chains – i.e. as they do for 1D codes. As soon as they do ShopSavvy will allow you to scan a 1D or 2D code (i.e. EAN/QR) an retrieve product information including: price, availability, dimensions, weight, ingredients, social impact and environmental impact. To learn more read GS1′s Mobile Barcodes Position Paper.
On Black Friday 612,488 ShopSavvy users scanned at least one item, a sevenfold increase over the 86,000 users that scan products on an average Friday. Total scans for the weekend topped 18 million – the top item was Sarah Palin’s best selling book Going Rogue (I will wait for the movie). Other top scans included:
The five most popular retailers for ShopSavvy scanning were:
The five most popular metropolitan areas for ShopSavvy scanning were:
Black Friday was HUGE for ShopSavvy. The numbers were off the charts (Americans were shopping in droves). Our paid competitor, RedLaser, is no longer offering Amazon prices – now exclusively using TheFind (local results) and their users are taking note. ShopSavvy offers pricing from more than 20,000 retailers (local and online). Once our barcode scanning improvements are implemented I am very hopeful that users will begin to realize that the REAL power of ShopSavvy is the data. Our team has four years of development in our local and online search platform (called PriceNark) and it is the real genius behind ShopSavvy. We have more retailers and more products than any mobile price comparison application on the market (and most normal price comparison services) – and ShopSavvy is 100% FREE.
Take a look at the version 1.2 scanning update to the right. We show progress of the scan as well as offer a boundary to show users were to align the scanner. We hope this will help users a) who are unsure if ShopSavvy is scanning by showing progress and b) to know where to align the barcode. Our testing (with my wife who couldn’t really use version 1.0) shows that most users can scan pretty easily with these two additions. These fixes are in addition to the fork of our scanning library (i.e. one for 2/3G and one for 3GS).
Download ShopSavvy for iPhone HERE.
If you are like millions of Americans you will head to the mall tomorrow to take advantage of all of the holiday sales. Make sure you bring along ShopSavvy. ShopSavvy can help you determine if you are getting a good deal. If ShopSavvy shows a lower price from another retailer (online or local) ask the retailer to price match. Best Buy and Walmart will price match other local stores as well as some online retailers like Amazon. Download ShopSavvy here.
Here is the clip:
ShopSavvy, the iPhone Barcode Scanner, download today: http://bit.ly/shopsavvyiphone
We decided long ago to offer ShopSavvy to users for free. There are a million business models and ours depends on having lots of users. It is HARD to convince a lot of folks to download your app – much less use it regularly. If you have a blog or website and can spare a few pixels we would love it if you could put one of these badges on your site. Just link to http://bit.ly/shopsavvyiphone and we are in business (I have asked our folks to add the badge on this site). The badges are located here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexmuse/sets/72157622875134326/ They look like this in various sizes:
We have decided to license our barcode scanning technology under two free models:
We have scanning libraries for Android AF, Android non-AF, RIM, 2/3G iPhone, 3GS iPhone and Windows Mobile. If you are interested just email or call Jennifer Donica at 1+214.550.3534 jdonica@architel.com.
