Here is a great recap and analysis of the Old Spice ‘The man your man could smell like’ campaign which was well documented here on Shopbabbles and seemingly everywhere else.

SEE/HEAR/BUY thrives on (mobile) NOWISM technologies that allow consumers to quickly find out more about an item, a song, or anything else they hear/see, and then buy it. This short overview of experience-and-buy services should get you going:

• Shopsavvy, an Android app, allows the user to scan almost any barcode using the phone’s camera, and it will then search over 20,000 online and local retailers to find the best price. Once the best deal has been found, users can either purchase online, or use the phone’s built-in Google Maps feature to find their way to the store.
• Californian SnapTell says half a million iPhone and Android users have downloaded its application (which, unlike Shopsavvy, allows users to photograph a product using cameras in their handsets, and then upload it to the website for reviews, recommendations and best prices), resulting in more than 1.5 million image queries so far. More than one in three buyers click through to an online retailer, earning SnapTell commissions.
• SnapTell is owned by Amazon.com, who recently also released its own, free, Android mobile application. This allows users to take photos of an item on their phone, or scan a barcode, and then have Amazon search for the same product online, enabling immediate comparison with the physical-retail price. If the price is right, users can purchase the item securely from their mobile device.
• SEE/HEAR/BUY pioneer Shazam, which was launched in 2002, offers a mobile app that allows users to identify tracks by recording a small clip of music. The app “tags” the track with a name and artist, and then allows users to purchase the music through an online store. The company just announced that more than 50 million people around the world have used the service; an increase of 15 million users since February of this year.Related: Midomi’s iPhone app offers a variety of ways for consumers to identify music. They can record a clip of live music, hum, sing or say the name of the song and Midomi will name the track and provide links to online content such as music videos and lyrics. Users can also click through to buy the song immediately.
• ColorSnap is a free iPhone application developed by US paint brand Sherwin-Williams. Launched in 2009, the application allows consumers to match the color of a photo taken on their iPhone with over 1,500 colors listed in the Sherwin-Williams database. This color and the complimentary color pallette is then sent to the phone. Next: a ‘buy now’ link to a DIY retail chain?

So… Who’s going to build similar SEE-HEAR-BUY services in 2010 for looking up movies, television shows and even commercials by just saying a few lines? And how will these instant gratification services further shape expectations among infolusty shoppers?

Source: www.trendwatching.com. One of the world’s leading trend firms, trendwatching.com sends out its free, monthly Trend Briefings to more than 160,000 subscribers worldwide.

Swipe is a brand-new service that will let anybody start (and become part of) social conversations around purchases. The idea is to let people who love shopping talk about the best deals that they have come across, and tell each other exactly where they have found them.

The site’s most distinctive feature is that such information is not walled in any sense, unlike other social shopping resources that prevent those who are not close friends and acquaintances from seeing the shopping history of others.

By having access to other people’s shopping habits in such an immediate way, then, you will be provided with a true idea of where the best spots to buy anything are. You will not be limited to these stores your friends always shop at, you will actually see what shoppers on the whole are doing. And the site also makes it very easy for people to discuss different stores until a consensus is reached concerning where to buy not only at the best prices, but also where sales teams really care for customers.

What will you get when you have a combination of a Barcode Scanner by ZXing Barcode, Google’s Google Goggles and the Shopping Tab on Google.com.

Google Mobile Shopper

Google Shopper

“Shopper lets you find product information quickly by using your phone’s camera. It can recognize cover art of books, CDs, DVDs, and video games, along with most barcodes. You can also speak the name of the product you’re looking for.” via

Google Shopper Android App is slightly different, its goal could be more a direct hit against Amazon.

Google Shopper Android App will save your history that you can store easy the product and price information. You can favorite items but you also can share your selected items with your friends. Google Shopper helps you to find product information quickly by using your phone’s camera.

View everything you have purchased in the past, you can track your orders and your deliveries, you also can contact the sellers and this from one one web page.

Will Google Shopper revolutionize Online Shopping?

Shop with your Android Phone wherever you are make a picture of a pair of shoes you like and get the address of the next shop where you can buy it.

Manage all Online Stores with one account.

AMSTERDAM, Tuesday June 16th, 2009. Mobile innovation company SPRXmobile launches Layar, worlds first mobile Augmented Reality browser, which displays real time digital information on top of reality (of) in the camera screen of the mobile phone. While looking through the phones camera lens, a user can see houses for sale, popular bars and shops, jobs, healthcare providers and ATMs. The first country to launch Layar is The Netherlands. Launching partners are local market leaders ING (bank), funda (realty website), Hyves (social network), Tempo-team (temp agency) and Zekur.nl (healthcare provider).

How it works
Layar is derived from location based services and works on mobile phones that include a camera, GPS and a compass. Layar is first avaliable for handsets with the Android operating system (the G1 and HTC Magic). It works as follows: Starting up the Layar application automatically activates the camera. The embedded GPS automatically knows the location of the phone and the compass determines in which direction the phone is facing. Each partner provides a set of location coordinates with relevant information which forms a digital layer. By tapping the side of the screen the user easily switches between layers. This makes Layar a new type of browser which combines digital and reality, which offers an augmented view of the world.

Dutch launch
The premier launch is for the Dutch market. Launching content partners are ING (ATMs), Funda (houses for sale), Hyves (social network hot spots) Tempo-team (jobs) and Zekur.nl (healthcare providers). Layar will be launched per country with local content partners in order to guarantee relevent results for the end user. SPRXmobile is planning further roll-outs, together with local partners, in Germany, the UK and the United States this year. SPRXmobile wil continue with regular releases of new layers after each local launch. The Layar application will be available via the Android Market. Other handsets and operating systems are in development with a prime focus on the iPhone 3G S.

SPRXmobile

Layar is developed by SPRXmobile, a mobile innovation company.

Eventually, the physical and the virtual worlds will become one. Many visions on Augmented Reality have already been developed, but we are proud to be able to bring this one step closer to reality, says Raimo van der Klein, co-founder of SPRXmobile.

More information:
http://layar.eu en http://www.sprxmobile.com.

Places is a big improvement on Twitter’s previous geo-location offering. Whereas before users had to adjust their settings and agree to posting every single tweet with their geo-coordinates, now Twitterers are presented with an elegant way to attach a place to their tweet, one tweet at a time.

Right now Places is a Twitter web and mobile experience only, but soon developers will integrate ‘Places’  into their applications and services. 

 Foursquare can still only reach a small subset of the online population. While Facebook — due to its size and reach — is the most mainstream of the social networks, Twitter might have the best chance at making location-sharing a common behavior. As it stands, Twitter is not a threat to location-based social games like Foursquare and Gowalla. In fact, it’s a complimentary service. Given that Places integrates with both services, users of Foursquare and Gowalla have double the incentive to continue updating their friends on their whereabouts. Checkins from either service are tied to places on Twitter, which means those updates will also get sucked into the Twitter Place feeds/streams.

Checkins will also have broader reach on Twitter via the Twitter Place page, which means more exposure for Foursquare and Gowalla.  More exposure will translate into more users who checkin more often, and so on……

Plus, as location-sharing becomes more accepted, users will begin to appreciate the added values that Gowalla and Foursquare bring to the table. Saving money — whether that be at Starbucks, Domino’s or Sports Authority — is something that never gets old and is guaranteed to drive traffic, make sales and build relationships.

The other powerful and potentially lucrative aspect With Places, is that Twitter has an opportunity to serve up highly targeted advertisements in the form of Promoted Tweets in the right place at the right time.

Twitter will be able to engage users with location specific messages about a local event, retailer or offer for instance so watch that space near you!

Article from Mashable

We are at the start of the “Big Shift” away from the 20th century defined by hyper-consumption towards the 21st century, an age of Collaborative Consumption.
But just how LARGE and FAR-REACHING is this groundswell?

http://www.collaborativeconsumption.com/spreadables/

Shopalize is a new site that lets you send updates to your friends regarding your shopping habits. Shopalize is essentially a Twitter for shoppers.

Well, Shopalize is like Twitter  in concept. You can add items to your Shopalize profile, but the service does not have SMS integration. You can, however, add images to your updates. In fact, I couldn’t add an update with out including an image. The tags you add to your update will help future searches, and the hope is to find others that like the same things as you. If Shopalize ever takes off, it could be an indicator of shopping habits, and possibly a place for consumer product reviews. Updates on Shopalize can be bookmarked, and even added to your Twitter profile using TwitThis.

Shopalize doesn’t have much of a community, as there is no way to add items to a favorites list, or follow or subscribe to other users. If the purpose is to see shopping trends and find others with similar interests, it would be most beneficial to Shopalize to incorporate more community features in their service. Adding an automatic Twitter feed that updates on Shopalize, such as Menuism’s Gut Check feature, would be a good way to add content as well.

http://mashable.com/2007/05/21/shopalize/

Similarly, Twitter has an application called,  JustBought.it, which was launched last year that  encourages users to tweet whenever they’ve “just bought something” (get it?) with a picture of the product and the location where they purchased it. The application is part Twitter, part TwitPic(),and part Google Maps().  The site then takes this data to create a community of Twitter() shoppers. Upon logging in (using Twitter OAuth), you’ll see any recent purchases from your area, by category (shoes, art, etc.) or just browse the latest tweets sent out from JustBought.it shoppers.

http://mashable.com/2009/07/31/justboughtit/

Lots of us have had the feeling that social media is impacting the way people shop and what they buy, but we haven’t been exactly sure how. Now, new research indicates that social media is changing shopping behavior and the following report explains what the changes are and what they mean for advertisers.  The Socialized Shopper

Social shopping sites are viral by nature. Individuals can participate in groups, recommend and share products, talk about what is fabulous or not so fabulous and add their favorite products to their blogs among other things. It’s a powerful combination. These sites strive to make it as easy as possible to participate and users tend to be fanatical about sharing what they find.

The Result? Social shopping sites are exceedingly beneficial to ecommerce retailers.

What you can expect:

Increased product exposure
Increased sales
Increased brand awareness
And, of course, increased traffic to your site
Not a bad deal.

To browse at your leisure, of course, here’s a list of  some to check out.

ThisNext
StyleHive
Kaboodle
StyleFeeder
CrowdStorm
Wists
CribCandy