iPhone App Uses Barcode Scans for Product Recommendations

Blake Scholl and Jason Crawford are two Amazon alumni transferring their e-commerce background and social product discovery experience to mobile in the form of Barcode Hero, an iPhone application that is receiving a massive update today.

Barcode Hero is designed to be a community where people share product recommendations through barcode scans. The application [iTunes link], a product of Scholl and Crawford’s KimaLabs, originally launched in August. Today’s update better surfaces those recommendations to help app users make more informed purchase decisions while shopping.

In version 1.0, Barcode Hero users could scan barcodes on products, leave short product comments and give their review in the form of a thumbs up or thumbs down. The application was built to be incredibly social in nature, so users could find and follow friends, post products to their social networks and compete Foursquarefoursquare-style to become the king or queen of each of the 50,000 product categories.

With version 2.0, the focus shifts from sharing to recommendations, so users can now scan products to see recommendations from friends. For instance, users can scan a bottle of wine to see reviews on that bottle, but also uncover the most highly recommended wines in the same category, according to the community. Of course, there’s also price comparison additives to ensure that users aren’t getting ripped off.

The updated app now supports browsing and search for products, photo uploads for additional points and the ability to discover if users’ address book contacts are using the app.

Scholl was reluctant to share specifics around application users or downloads, but he did disclose that users are very active — 30% leave thumbs-up product recommendations and 10% leave short product comments. Apple also plans to feature Barcode Hero in a list of featured holiday shopping apps beginning today, which should cause a spike in downloads and activity.

Barcode Hero resembles a slew of other applications including Stickybits and myShopanion. What makes it unique is its core purpose is to help people choose amongst products. The founders also don’t plan to add rewards in the immediate rewards, which prevents the app from infringing upon the store scanning and rewards zone that Checkpoints and Shopkick occupy.

Barcode Hero has raised $770,000 in seed funding from top notch backers including Ron Conway’s SV Angel and former MySpace CEO and Amazon alum Owen Van Natta. The company will likely raise an additional round next year.

Image courtesy of FlickrFlickr, littleREDelf

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eBay’s iPhone App Combines Buying And Selling, Adds Barcode Scanning From RedLaser

As the holiday shopping season ramps up, retailers are expected the use of mobile phones for shopping activity to be big this year. According to the Mobile Marketing Association, 59 percent of mobile consumers plan to make use of their mobile phone for shopping and planning purposes this holiday season and 64 percent of consumers plan to use their mobile phone to help scout out deals before leaving for the stores. With that it mind, eBay is launching a new version of its popular marketplace iPhone app, which allows users to browse, bid and buy from eBay auctions.

The app, which has seen 13.5 million downloads, will now consolidate its buying and selling iPhone apps. Previously, eBay had a separate iPhone app for sellers that allows users to quickly take photos of items and post them on eBay. Now sellers can do this directly from the primary eBay iPhone app, and access research sales trends and more.

A new ‘Quick View’ home screen allows both buyers and sellers to see instant updates on items. If a seller is listing a similar item sold or selling on eBay, users can simply use eBay’s “Sell One Like This” feature to create a listing that is automatically populated with information like category and item condition.

eBay is also adding technology from RedLaser, the barcode scanning iPhone app that eBay acquired from Occipital in June, to the iPhone app. eBay says that total RedLaser iPhone app downloads have tripled since eBay bought the technology, but I wonder if that growth will continue now that the app is included in eBay’s primary app.

One of the great benefits of RedLaser’s scanning technology in the app is the ability to comparison shop on the go. Users can scan a barcode on an item at a store and then automatically access any eBay listings of the product on the marketplace. Sellers can also use the scanning technology to scan and item and list the product in very little time.

Other features included in the new version of the iPhone app is a featured Daily Deals listing, a more integrated PayPal experience and the ability to save searches and set up reminders.

eBay is on pace to reach a whopping $1.5 billion worth of goods sold via its mobile apps in 2010 if all goes well this holiday season. eBay has made it pretty clear that mobile shopping is a key part of its future business. This year alone, the company launched apps for iPad, Android and Windows 7 devices for its auction business. And eBay added a new Half.com app, and a Fashion-focused app to its library.

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