Lots of people ask me what I think of the various smartphone platforms. Rylan came up with a super hero for each smartphone. Here are his picks:

iPhone::Batman – is loved for his human limitations, gadgets, style and willingness to play by his own rules. The iPhone will continue to be loved by millions.

Blackberry::Wolverine – both are from Canada and are very old (80 years old I think). Neither are much to look at, but they are very scrappy. Both are notoriously difficult to work with.

Windows Mobile 6.5::Captain American – was once relevant during WWII, has no special powers and is generally irrelevant to most Americans today. Windows Mobile will continue to become less and less relevant.

Windows Phone 7::The Phoenix – rose from the ashes and is disturbingly powerful. Windows Phone has a real chance of being a hit.

Palm WebOS::Robin – forever in Batman’s shadow. At one point Robin died and was replaced. There is some hope for Robin as he did eventually become Nightwing. Perhaps with HP’s support WebOS has a chance.

Android::Apocalypse – has complete control over the atomic structure of his body, looks like a robot and has limitless potential. Android’s strength is also its weakness, it can be everything to anyone.

Symbian::Arm Fall Off Boy – was so lame he was rejected by all of the other superheroes. Enough said…

Since the launch of ShopSavvy in 2008, we have had two primary competitors – Google and Amazon. Last week Google launched their THIRD barcode scanning shopping app (1st was Barcode Scanner (open source project by Google folks and 2nd was Google Goggles) called Google Shopper. All three are great apps. Lots of people have asked me, “So is this the end of ShopSavvy?”

The simple answer is, “I hope not.”  Google and Amazon are NOT the sort of competitors a startup should take lightly, but I do think their (repeated) entrance into our space is good news. We really stumbled onto something when we our app first won Google’s Android Developer Challenge and (obviously) they didn’t over look this fact.

100% of our focus is on making ShopSavvy the BEST shopping application on the market. Our goals are simple:

1. No. 1 INFORM the user
2. No. 2 EMPOWER the user
3. No. 3 INSPIRE the user

We have been doing No. 1 for about 18 months. We are just about to offer No. 2 with our payments integration. Finally, we hope to complete No. 3 by the end of the second quarter. Earlier this month I wrote about focusing on what your competitors are doing in a post titled, “Negative Target Acquisition“. We will keep trying to make ShopSavvy the BEST shopping application on the market. Ironically, Google’s new app has DRAMATICALLY increased our download volume. We are adding new users at a level we have NEVER seen before. Google’s PR effort is amazing, but interestingly my Google Alert’s for ‘ShopSavvy’ have been going off every hour as a new stories mentions both Google’s new app AND ShopSavvy. It is insane. So, I just wanted to thank Google for all the PR. We will continue to attempt to innovate and users will decide the ultimate winner(s).

ShopSavvy is current available on Android (Droid, Hero, Nexus, Eris, G1, MyTouch) and iPhone 3GS.  We are currently working on versions for:

• Android (all AF camera versions) – Launched!
• Android (Devour, Tattoo, Lancaster – i.e. non-AF cameras) – June 2010
• iPhone (2G/3G – i.e. non-AF cameras) – Launched!
• Windows Mobile – July 2010
• Blackberry – Nov 2010
• Symbian/Nokia – Launched!
• PalmOS – June 2010

Based on our current workload and staff these dates seem reasonable. Of course, our iPhone version took us almost three months longer than we expected (and we still don’t have the 2G/3G working well).  We get LOTS of emails each day, hopefully this update will help.

Lots of you ask, “Which retailers will price match?”  I found an interesting site that seems to answer this question for a number of retailers called Price Pinx.  Here are some of the retailers they follow:

Price Guarantee and Price Match Policies

[I first wrote about this on my blog and thought I would cross post here]

I was driving to Nacogodoches (network coverage is spotty at best on Highway 175) when I saw a Google alert for ShopSavvy (our barcode scanning price comparison application). One of my heroes, Tim O’Reilly, had written an article titled ‘Why Using ShopSavvy Might Not be So Savvy.” When I tried to click on the article to read it while driving down the road (I don’t recommend driving while reading, but I couldn’t resist) I went through a zone without AT&T Edge or 3G coverage (too bad I didn’t have my Verizon Droid). For the next 35 minutes I imagined what Tim had written – driving down the highway in East Texas waiting impatiently for my iPhone to switch from ‘Searching’ to Edge or 3G. When I finally got enough service to load his post I was surprised.

Tim wrote that ShopSavvy reminded him of “the fundamental shortsightedness of so many of our economic decisions, that flaw in human nature that makes us seize on temporary advantage without thinking of the long-term consequences.” He suggested that pursuit of the lowest price will ‘hasten the demise of many retailers’ and ultimately result in increased prices.

First, I think Tim’s premise is flawed. Eliminating mega-retailers won’t increase prices – the internet will make sure of that. Second, to suggest that applications like ShopSavvy are somehow to blame for the demise of mega-retailers is sort of silly. If mega-retailers are on the way out it won’t be the fault of applications written by a tiny company in Dallas, Texas. Why did Circuit City fail? Circuit City did not lose to the internet, it lost to Best Buy. Best Buy stores were better stocked, easier to navigate, staffed by employees who seem to care and often have great deals. For every purchase I make online I make four in a local retailer like Best Buy. If Tim is worried that ShopSavvy somehow takes away from mega-retailers I think he should realize that the real culprit is the internet itself.

The moment the internet was created retail shopping was forever changed. The internet made information about products and pricing available to anyone with a computer and more recently anyone with a smartphone. Savvy shoppers have been checking online retail prices from the very start (see Amazon.com). I wish Tim’s article had been titled, “Why using the internet to shop might not be so savvy.” Ironically ShopSavvy can provide a retailer with the ability to understand and respond to a shopper’s behavior. Shoppers who just use the internet are simply lost from the retailers perspective. I would argue applications like ShopSavvy might be the BEST thing to happen to local retail in a long time.

At the end of the day I don’t agree with Tim’s premise, but I could respect it more if it called out the real culprit. Tim explains that he rarely shops in physical stores, “I do most of my shopping online, and I love the convenience. But when I do go to local stores to browse physical products, I make sure to buy there, even if there’s a better price online. I’m paying a little extra for that right to walk up and touch the product before I buy it.”

I have a dirty little secret I would like to share with Tim: 100% of retail shoppers know that they can buy everything cheaper online. They don’t need ShopSavvy to explain this to them. ShopSavvy organizes information (reviews, pricing and inventory) about the products our users are interested in buying. Ironically, the most compelling part of ShopSavvy is how it helps users discover local prices and inventory. Our data shows that users spend 75% more time clicking on local prices than online prices. They want to know that the store next door sells the same item for less AND has it in inventory. If shoppers were to follow Tim’s advice they would be compelled to buy an item regardless of price. If I was a retailer and saw Tim coming into my store I would mark everything up 500% knowing he would pay the markup.

I suspect mega-retailers would prefer that Tim do more of his shopping in their stores even if he continued to buy most everything online. I don’t think they would be offended at all. If he shopped in Best Buy he might be surprised that Best Buy would match online retailers like Amazon.com. Mega-retailers like Walmart, Target and Best Buy all focus on price. They claim to have the best prices, they price match and they offer in-store deals all of the time. Some retailers like Nordstrom focus on service – I buy clothes at Nordstrom because they help me buy clothes – I do not buy clothes at Macy’s because they focus on price. Retail is changing – the internet started it. ShopSavvy won’t be the demise of retail. Anyway, thanks for the mention Tim (surely we will get a few more downloads because of it).

I just awoke to find a few great articles on ShopSavvy this morning.  The first article was from ABC News that described ShopSavvy as a “Lifestyle App That Makes Life Easier“.  Ki Heussner from ABC’s Gadget Guide described ShopSavvy as “An oldie-but-goodie,” suggesting, “ShopSavvy is a necessary application for every budget-conscious shopper.” Thanks for the mention Ki!

The next article was by Geoffrey Fowler and Yukari Kane from the Wall Street Journal titled, “Price Check: Finding Deals with a Phone“.  The article begins by describing how Erik Olson used ShopSavvy to scan the price of a Blu-ray DVD at Best Buy only to find it cheaper at Walmart.  Later in the article Ivory Johnson of Georgia explained, “ShopSavvy has changed my method of shopping.”  Ivory’s sister explained that his sister used ShopSavvy to get a $50 refund from a retailer after scanning the barcode on the Flip UltraHD camera she had previously bought.

Next, I read an article by Kent McNeil suggesting that ShopSavvy would help Ebay drive more than $500M in mobile-based revenue this year alone.  I can’t wait to see what we can do in 2010.  Kent specifically noted that ShopSavvy is one of two companies that are using PayPal’s open technology for payments (the other is Twitpay.me).  Kent’s piece was a followup on a USA Today article titled, “CEO tries to breath new life into eBay and PayPal.“  The article mentioned that ShopSavvy was part of eBay’s new strategy.

Finally lots of little mentions of the new release, specifically the iPhone Bible, MacMegasite, prMac,  reported that we had launched ShopSavvy v.1.1 for iPhone and Touch.

Lots of folks have asked whether or not ShopSavvy will support the new DataBar barcode standard for fresh food, jewelry and go-it-yourself hardware products.  The easy answer is that we do and will continue to do so.  These new codes include additional data including serial numbers, lot numbers and expiration dates.  The standard will go into effect by 2010 with a target date of 2014 for all fresh products.  Here is what they look like:

(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:

We have decided to license our barcode scanning technology under two free models:

• Data Sharing. Free License for Applications that share their data with ShopSavvy (food data, price data, allergy data, review data and so on).  If your data can help ShopSavvy provide users with a better experience we will share our technology with you for free.  We will ALSO provide a link to your app providing you with a free advertising channel.
• Publishing License. Free License for Applications that use Big in Japan’s app publishing services.  We announced this model previously in post titled, “License our barcode scanning tech for free” (you can read more there).

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.