Scott Baradell, our PR flack, should issue a press release announcing the winner of our first ShopSavvy Fan Video Contest in the next day or two. You may recall we asked ShopSavvy users to create a video about ShopSavvy – the best would receive a Google Nexus phone. I shipped the phone earlier today so I thought it might be time for a second contest.

I just got a brand new DROID Android phone from Google and thought it might make the perfect prize for an enterprising ShopSavvy user. If you are interested in receiving a free DROID smartphone I encourage you to enter our contest. Simply video yourself explaining how ShopSavvy has saved you money.  Here are rules:

• Video must be less than 2 minutes in length
• Video must be uploaded to Youtube and include the following title and tags:
  - Title: ShopSavvy Fan Video from [your name]
  - Tags: shopsavvy, shop savvy, barcode, barcode scanner, upc, ean
• Video must describe how ShopSavvy has saved you money and include:
  - Mention of actual product, retailer, price and savings
• Only talk about ShopSavvy and your savings in the video, don’t tell us that you are trying to win a DROID – we already know you are trying to win the DROID by applying.
• Email the following information to sales@biggu.com:
  - your full name
  - your mailing address (i.e. where we send the DROID)
  - a link to your video
• Finally, when you get your prize (i.e. the DROID) you need to take a picture of yourself with the phone and email it to us!

The winning video will likely include a shot of ShopSavvy in the video along with a great story. Funny, serious – it doesn’t matter as long as it is true. We will keep the contest open until we get 100 entries or May 15th – whichever is sooner. Don’t email and ask, “Is the contest still on?” – instead if you enter before we announce the winner you still have a chance to win. I really need to get rid of this DROID and it is either this contest or ebay – I would prefer to give it to a ShopSavvy user. Sound good?  Record your video ASAP! Thanks.

We spend a lot of time working with Motorola and Verizon on applications, but we were surprised to hear that the Motorola Devour (now available from Verizon) had a fixed focal length camera – wow! This decision rendered all (that I know of) barcode scanning Apps in the Android market inoperable. Oops.

Verizon must be selling a bunch of these because we are getting LOTS of emails from users that ShopSavvy does not work on their phone. Many of the users explain, “ShopSavvy was the only reason I bought this phone and it doesn’t work, you guys suck!”  Again, we apologize – we didn’t realize the device would have a fixed focal length camera.

Verizon is sending us a Devour in the next couple of days and we plan to release a new version of ShopSavvy that will work as well or better than the version we have for the Nexus and the Droid. If the rollout goes well (i.e. no bugs) we will update ALL versions of the ShopSavvy app to include our new faster scanning library.

If you are an Android developer with barcode scanning in your app we can provide our new barcode scanning library at no cost – just email sales@biggu.com for more information.

Microsoft Bizspark Accelerator ShopSavvy Winner

ShopSavvy, the breakthrough comparison shopping app, was named the winner in the Entertainment Technology category at the Microsoft BizSpark Accelerator at SXSW Interactive 2010 event.  The two-day event is an annual competition where startups pitch their businesses to a panel of judges, including venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and industry experts, in front of a live audience.

Of more than 200 applicants, 32 semi-finalists in four categories were invited to Austin for a chance to demo their product or service – and get grilled by the event’s judges.  Judges included Tim Chang, Norwest Venture Partners; Chi-Hua Chien, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers; Paul Graham, Y Combinator; Guy Kawasaki, Alltop; and Robert Scoble, Rackspace and Scobleizer.  Big in Japan beat out two other startups, PocketTales and BandCentral, in the final round of the competition on Tuesday.

“The competition was grueling, with high-speed presentations and tough cross-examinations from the judges – but it was worth it. We’re proud to come out on top in an event with previous winners like Twitter and Ribbit.”

“We were thrilled with the quality of submissions we received for the second annual Microsoft BizSpark Accelerator at SXSW,” said event coordinator Chris Valentine. “We’re confident that we’ve chosen a strong group of winners.”

Ranking as one of the most popular apps on Android phones since its launch in September 2008, Big in Japan’s ShopSavvy app became available on the iPhone in November 2009.  ShopSavvy enables users to comparison shop on the go for more than 20 million products at more than 20,000 retailers worldwide, simply by scanning the product’s barcode using the phone’s built-in camera. Using the barcode information, ShopSavvy searches the Web for the best prices on the product, displaying the lowest prices online as well as at nearby brick-and-mortar retailers. ShopSavvy looks up product reviews to further assist with purchase decisions. [text from press release, hope you don't mind].

Several of our folks  are speaking at various times at the SXSW Interactive Festival in Austin over the next few days. First, Jake Marsh is on the ‘Is App-vertising the Answer?’ panel on Saturday, March 13th at 12:10pm in Hilton D. Rylan Barnes will be hosting a talk during the T3 Workshop titled, ‘Mobile Development Across Platforms’ on Monday, March 15th at 9:30am in Ballroom F. I will be presenting ShopSavvy during the Microsoft BizSpark Accelerator contest on Monday, March 15th at 5pm in Hilton G.

The Google folks are busy adding local stock status to their local shopping results.  ShopSavvy has been offering this feature for quite some time.  See picture to right.  We are going to start ‘merchandising’ this information in a more prominent way because a lot of you had no idea we have been offer local inventory information for more than a year.

Our idea is to start listing the inventory on the retailer results page. Currently we only show it on the store location results page. What do you think? Will this help?

Snappr is now part of ShopSavvy

Techcrunch got the scoop before I had a chance to post.  Founded in August 2007, Snappr was a pioneer in the 2D barcode business. The goal was to provide a platform to easily create, manage and access mobile content and to promote this content in exciting, new ways. If you are like me, one of the first barcode scanning applications you downloaded was Snappr (it is still on my phone to this day). Snappr was the first iPhone application capable of scanning a 2D barcode. The ShopSavvy team has been busy incorporating Snappr’s technology into ShopSavvy.

Philip Stehlik, founder and CEO of Snappr, will join ShopSavvy’s board of advisors. Philip, founder and CEO of Snappr, is a pioneer in the mobile barcode business. Snappr took the concept and the technology of QR Codes and packaged it into an easy to use webservice and mobile application where both, the content owner and the accessing end-user have real benefits from using the Codes and the mobile content behind them. Snappr was one of the first services in the US and Europe to provide a well rounded solution leveraging QR Codes to access mobile content. Prior to founding Snappr he acted as senior developer and project lead at ReadSoft US where he implemented ReadSoft’s SAP solutions at major US corporations like Apple or Boehringer Ingelheim. Philip began his career at Ebydos AG in Frankfurt Germany, where he was responsible for major product implementations at companies like John Deere, REHAU and Schneider Electric.

The Snappr acquisition has been instrumental in our QR Code program.

The adoption of two-dimensional barcodes in marketing and advertising has been hampered by proprietary standards. Too many companies have spent too much time attempting to monetize a very simple, but powerful feature. Ironically, there has always been an alternative, open standard called a Quick Response or QR Code. Anyone can generate a two-dimensional QR Code pointing to any website for free. Additionally, millions of mobile phone users already have QR Code capable readers like ShopSavvy®.

The biggest problem with QR Codes is that American consumers don’t know what a 2D barcode is. They need some help understanding how to react to a QR Code printed on a billboard or in a magazine advertisement. Our ‘Scan with ShopSavvy’ program was designed to solve this problem. Millions of ShopSavvy users already use the application to scan 1D barcodes, but many of them have no idea that ShopSavvy will scan open standard 2D barcodes (i.e. QR Code), but they do understand the concept of scanning.

Our ‘Scan with ShopSavvy’ program allows brands to leverage our ‘trained’ user base by including our ‘Scan with ShopSavvy’ badge anywhere they print a 2D barcode. Consumers can use ANY QR-capable scanner (50+ today), but the program attempts to short circuit the call to action by showing the user he can use an application he already has on his smartphone.

The program is free for almost all brands. Our goal is to promote QR Codes, ShopSavvy and build great relationships with brands. Interested? Brands simply need to email sales@biggu.com and explain the planned usage of our badge prior to use. Permission will be granted to almost all brands. Camera-ready art of the badge is available for download:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/109866/scanwithshopsavvy.zip

Basic tracking is included for FREE as part of the QR code generator and includes:

• Total click tracking
• Click tracking (today, past week, past month, total)
• Referrer tracking (today, past week, past month, total)
• Location tracking (today, past week, past month, total)
• Conversation tracking (number of tweets, shares, comments)

Enhanced programs area available including geo-targeted content. Use the consumers location as a trigger for alternative content. Show a user in a specific store or city a different experience. Please contact our sales department for more information.