Did you just notice on your way to work a few stores carrying weird bar codes at their entrances?
That could be the future of local business as Google has launched a pretty interesting way for users to find information about places using their service.
Starting this week, Google has mailed window stickers to a few 100,000 local businesses all over US. These window stickers contain barcodes to uniquely identify the place. Google calls these businesses 'Favorite Places'. If your iPhone has one of the barcode reading apps, all you need to do is scan the barcode (called QR codes) and you will be able to read all important information about the business like phone number, directions, reviews from other Google users about the place, etc. What's more, businesses can also offer discount coupons to users visiting their page from Google.
Though the number of businesses covered is not very big at the moment, Google has indicated that it will gradually be scaling up to include a lot more places. The prioritization is done with the help of what Google calls PlaceRank which is something similar to Google's PageRank algorithm except that in this case the businesses are ranked based on the prominence of the place on the web with factors like images, reviews, pictures, how long it has been around, etc.
The concept is certainly innovative. But is it exciting? Not much. With increasing proliferation of technologies like GPS on smartphones, there needs to be a much simpler way of looking up for information. To elaborate, consider this. With Google's Favorite Places, there are a lot of roadblocks to finding information - like the need to have a barcode reading iPhone app, the need to walk up to the cafe's entrance to read reviews and so on. Compare this to how Yelp's iPhone app using augmented reality works. All you need to do in order to look up for information is point your iPhone towards the place from your car and you get all the information you need. That is a much simpler and futuristic approach that Google could have adopted.
Nevertheless, the idea looks promising and we see a lot of businesses already wanting to get featured. Here is a demo on how the app works:
Do let us know what you think.
[via Google Blog]
I dono i kinda find that cool. You can see the reveiew for a place befor you go in and waste you money.
Sounds kind of lame having to scan a barcode, I think maybe a type of frequency broadcasting would be so much better. You would just walk by and pick up the signal and see video comentary about a Resteraunt or a comercial, that sounds alot more innovative, lol
a sticker is much cheaper than a small powered fm broadcaster….ummm.. NO!
I like the idea.
I guess thats true, but if you compare a cheap $10 fm broadcaster that you can pick up from your car to having to walk up to a window to scan a little sticker, then they might as well put a paper on the window with all of the info or just hand out flyers, but most places already do that lol