Using the combination of camera and software on today’s smartphones to read barcodes is becoming increasingly popular. Want proof? Look no further than Google, which is building it into their own Android devices. And Microsoft, which is even offering such software on rival phones by Google and Apple. Today, one of the big players in this space, Big In Japan, is announcing the acquisition of another former player, Snappr, to beef up the offering.
Big In Japan is best known as the app production house behind ShopSavvy, the mobile shopping utility. It has long been one of the cooler apps on Android, and recently it became available for the iPhone too. With it, you can simply scan a barcode in a store and find out information about a product — most notably, if you can find it somewhere else for a cheaper price. Snappr, meanwhile, deadpooled in late 2009, but was an early player in 2D barcode scanning (particularly QR codes) with smartphones.
With the acquisition, Big In Japan picks up Snappr’s technology, which they will integrate into ShopSavvy. And Snppr founder, Philip Stehlik, will join Big In Japan’s board of advisors. Snappr’s former website already redirects to a new Big In Japan holding page.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but again, this is a company that was already deadpooled, so it was most likely a pretty cheap pick up of some technology by Big In Japan.
Snappr.net provides users with easy creation, management and access to mobile content - With the help of 2D Barcodes. The content owner gets visibility and exposure of his material in a new way and gains the ability to track accesses-rates, views, actions, etc. of his mobile content. This allows completely new ways of interaction, integration and tracking. The mobile platform Snappr.mobi deliveres information to the accessing end-user in an optimized web-format, which renders differently for the accessing device’s capabilities and guarantees...
Big in Japan Inc. is a mobile application publishing company based in Dallas, Texas. Our developers build applications for mobile devices including Google’s Android platform, Apple’s iPhone, RIM, Windows Mobile and Palm’s Pre. Their team supports the requirements and needs of consumers, developers and advertisers. Their core focus is on publishing applications developed either in-house or by third party developers. On occasion they will do client development if the project is compelling. Past clients include FOX Television, FX Network, LEGO,...
ShopSavvy is a shopping assistant developed for Google’s Android mobile phone platform and is one of T-Mobile’s featured applications in their 2008/2009 US and EU launch. Users can scan the bar code of any product using their phone’s built-in camera. ShopSavvy will then search for the best prices online and through the inventories of nearby, local stores using the phone’s built-in GPS. ShopSavvy won Google’s Android Developer Challenge and is available in Google’s Market.
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