How Mobile Photos Will Shape The Future of Marketing

Posted by Neena Amarnani at 3:13 PM

Do you currently own a smartphone with a camera? You probably use that camera to send picture messages to friends or post photos to Facebook. What if you could use your camera to instantly search for any information about an object, product, or location?

Google, Amazon, and many other companies are currently working on a new technology that could revolutionize the way we search for information. The idea is that you could snap a picture and instantly be able to access search information about the objects in the picture. For example, you could be on a vacation and take a picture of a monument to instantly view information on the name and history of the monument etc. You could also be in a store and take a picture of a pair of shoes to instantly see product ratings and other online vendors selling the same item.

What do you think about this technology? Do you think this would change the way you search for information?

 

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4 comments:

  1. Neena Amarnani said... December 5, 2010 at 3:26 PM

    The link isn't working off of the blog. Here is the article link.

    http://adage.com/digitalnext/article?article_id=147437  

  2. Brady Frankiewicz said... December 5, 2010 at 5:36 PM

    I agree with the author of the article that picture messaging will likely soon overtake texting as a popular means of communicating. Already, I often receive picture messages from friends who are traveling and want to share the sights and adventures they see. Also, from a market research perspective, I think this new image analysis technology is invaluable. Marketers will be able to monitor which products consumers are scanning into their phones and gauge preferences.  

  3. WisconsInnovation said... December 5, 2010 at 9:47 PM

    This is a very interesting emerging technology. I can imagine that this will raise a number of interesting privacy concerns and may lead to some negative outcomes (as well as many positive ones).

    ps: I repaired the link. It should work now.  

  4. Amy Levin said... December 6, 2010 at 3:52 PM

    This reminds me of the cell phone application called Shazam. Shazam is a program that recognizes songs that are played on the radio and emails you the name of the song along with the artist. It is a low-cost application and all a user needs to do is place their phone near a music source and open the Shazam application. Within seconds, the desired information will be emailed to you. This is great for people who are driving and want to recall songs to download later.

    Similar to Brady's comment, Shazam can also be a program that is extremely helpful from a marketing research perspective. Companies can learn which songs people are inquiring about and are interested in to help gauge the popularity of a song.  

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