According to an article in Cnet ‘Android sales to outstrip iPhone by 2012!“  More than a million G1s have been sold in the UK according to Telefonica Europe.   Awesome – we are betting they are right.

For those of you who don’t like to read I recorded a short video explaining the features available in Gigan:

Only a month later than promised, we are pleased to announce Gigan will be available today!  MG Sigler has a great post regarding the release on VentureBeat titled, “ShopSavvy perfects its Android app with better location and barcode scanning.“  Specifically the Gigan release offers:

1. Skyhook integration (better and faster location)
2. Faster barcode scanning (new scanning library)
3. Stealth barcode scanning modes (beep, vibrate or silent)
4. Menu shortcuts (visual indicator to indicate Menu tab contains data)
5. Privacy settings (turn off location)
6. Sharing features including Twitter and Facebook

Gigan follows our Mothra release back in January.  Each of our releases are named after opponents of Godzilla.  Gigan is a daikaiju from the Godzilla series, introduced in the 1972 film Godzilla vs. Gigan. Gigan is a cybernetic monster sporting a buzzsaw weapon in its frontal abdominal region and large metallic hooks for hands. Gigan is sometimes considered Godzilla’s most brutal and violent opponent, and has a large fan following (including Godzilla: Final Wars director Ryuhei Kitamura) despite the generally perceived low quality of its first two films. Its new designs for the Millennium series was praised by many and ranked among fans as the best improvements to a daikaiju.

Since the launch of ShopSavvy last year, our users have struggled with our inability to determine their location.  Each week hundreds of users would email us to complain that ShopSavvy couldn’t provide them with local results.  The first answer in our FAQ was a post about how to get local results.  It helped a little, but we knew we needed a solution.

Our first step was to integrate Skyhook‘s hybrid positioning system that combines GPS, Cell tower triangulation and Wi-Fi Positioning.  Next we incorporated a service that location dependent applications can use to ‘pre-fetch’ location data so that it is ALWAYS available regardless of whether or not you can get an immediate GPS fix.  It also fixes another problem – the time it takes the GPS to obtain a fix (30-60 seconds).  Whenever you use ShopSavvy to scan an item we  need to figure out where you are to give you a local price.  Even if you can get a GPS fix when you scan a barcode, we might not be able to get the GPS coordinates before we provide the pricing results – as a result you won’t get local results.  By pre-fetching your location regularly, we can use the last known result which is likely very close to your current location.  Finally, our testing has confirmed that neither Skyhook or pre-fetch negatively impacted battery life.

Now that our location data will be far more available and accurate we decided we needed to create a ‘privacy mode’ enabling users to turn off Skyhook and ‘pre-fetch’.  In addition to empowering users to disable ShopSavvy’s use of location data, we also updated our privacy policy to mirror Google’s policy.  Hopefully our new location features will reduce the number of complaints.  Hopefully our new privacy feature and privacy policy will head off privacy concerns.  Of course feel free to email us if you are concerned or confused: sales@biggu.com.

Big in Japan is a mobile application publishing company based in Dallas, Texas. Our team built and distributed the popular ShopSavvy application for Android. Since winning the Google Android Challenge, our team has negotiated distribution and promotion agreements with more than a dozen carriers and handset manufacturers. These agreements have resulted in thousands of news articles, hundreds of television appearances, Super Bowl and Oscar commercials, billboards and countless blog mentions for ShopSavvy. Along the way we have built relationships with WPP, Omnicom and various brands including Visa and Discover. Then a strange thing happened. Our various carrier and advertising partners began introducing us to developers they wanted to work with, but for some reason couldn’t. We began helping these developers, making introductions, providing advice, technical assistance and generally making the carriers and advertisers more comfortable. It dawned on us that we might be able to help other developers leverage the relationships and experience we have been built over the past two years. Thus our mobile application publishing concept was born. Our objective is to become a well-known and trusted mobile application-publishing brand.

We offer developers a very simple publishing model: To start we allow the Developer to keep 100% of all revenue generated through the sale of their application. We then use our relationships with carriers and advertisers to help distribute and monetize the application. Any revenue generated by these alternative methods will be split equally between the Developer and Big in Japan. The case for publishing:

Consumers and advertisers need to be able to trust the developer. Publishers can provide:
• Clear and concise code of conduct and set of ethics.
• Assurance of data security.
o Prevention of illegal or improper collection or sale of user data.
o Prevention of inadvertent exposure of user data.
• Assurance of standard minimum level of application quality.
o Consistent user experience.
o Assurance of good technical design (e.g. battery preservation)
• Dependability of backend platform (servers, bandwidth, load balancing)
• Financial viability of developer (stable legal entity with which to do business)
• Standardized terms and conditions as well as privacy policies.
• Regular, but stable new release and update process and schedule.
Developers need additional revenue sources (besides retail sales). Publisher can provide:
• Identification of advertisers and sponsors.
• Negotiation of advertising revenue agreements.
• Identification of distribution partners (carriers and handset makers).
• Negotiation of distribution agreements.
Developers often need expertise and advice. Publisher can help:
• Trademark and copyright applications.
• File a patent application to protect the technology.
• Provide access to scores of beta testers and additional resources.
• Provide access to real world, on staff, developers with experience with Android, iPhone, RIM, Windows Mobile and other mobile platforms.

Contact Alexander Muse 1+214.550.2003 or amuse@biggu.com for more information or to review our proposed publishing agreement.

T-Mobile started a viral YouTube video sensation in January with more than 6,000,000 views in the UK.  The idea was simple – a simulated flash mob in Liverpool.  Since then flash mob has been copied by Facebook users in the same Liverpool location and now other locations throughout London.  Then T-Mobile created a ShopSavvy commercial (shorter) made for television tied into the viral YouTube video.  Very cool.  Check it out:

Now check out the ShopSavvy T-Mobile Commercial (UK only):

Want to try out the latest version of ShopSavvy?  Our Gigan release is in open beta, feel free to give it a spin.  Here is the sign up form: Gigan Beta. Gigan offers:

1. Skyhook integration (better and faster location)
2. Faster barcode scanning (new scanning library)
3. Stealth barcode scanning modes (beep, vibrate or silent)
4. Menu shortcuts (visual indicator to indicate Menu tab contains data)
5. Privacy settings (turn off location)
6. Sharing features including Twitter and Facebook

Gigan (????, Gaigan) is a daikaiju from the Godzilla series, introduced in the 1972 film Godzilla vs. Gigan. Gigan is a cybernetic monster sporting a buzzsaw weapon in its frontal abdominal region and large metallic hooks for hands. Gigan is sometimes considered Godzilla’s most brutal and violent opponent, and has a large fan following (including Godzilla: Final Wars director Ryuhei Kitamura) despite the generally perceived low quality of its first two films. Its new designs for the Millennium series was praised by many and ranked among fans as the best improvements to a daikaiju.

Interested in having Big in Japan publish your application?

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GS1 is a global organization respsonsible for UPC/EAN codes for manufacturers.  We have been talking to various member organizations and there seems to be a desire for a standard for manufacturers to insert data into mobile applications like ShopSavvy based on barcodes.  Here is our idea:
It is our feeling that manufacturers might want to insert additional product information for use in mobile applications like our own ShopSavvy application.  We believe a simple API could be agreed on by all GS1 associations making it easy for all manufacturers to insert additional product data into mobile applications that return specific information about a particular product.

A REST API that could take a query with a UPC/EAN and return an XML formatted response.  ShopSavvy, and similar applications could make a simple HTTP request to the remote service and then parse the XML response on the device.

http://gr1.com/service/productquery.cgi?UPC=88222444448811

The XML feed could include:

<productinfo>
<partno>XX131</partno>
<title>Pink Widget</title>
<abstract/>The Pink Widget by ACME</abstract>
<text>This is some free form text. </text>
<url>http://www.acmecorp.com/</url>
<image> http://www.acmecorp.com/products/XX131/image.jpg</image>
<video>http://www.acmecorp.com/products/XX131/demo.mp4</video>
<audio>http://www.acmecorp.com/products/XX131/about.mp3</video>
<chat>http://jabber.acmecorp.com/products/XX131/chat</chat>
</productinfo>

In the case of the ShopSavvy application we would insert one or more of these NODES on our product information page.  Here is an example of the page:

If you haven’t seen ShopSavvy in action this video might help:

We would love to help you implement this idea as a standard for your member companies.  While it would be helpful to our application, we believe the entire industry would benefit from a standard XML format for manufacturer data relative to UPC information.  Please let me know who I might work with to move this idea forward.

Regards,
Alexander Muse
1+214.550.2003 office
1+214.558.1079 cell

http://www.biggu.com

amuse@biggu.com