Mobile marketing on steroids

Anybody out there tried SnapTell for the iPhone? It’s, variously, a powerful, scary or just plain freakin’ cool new tool, available free on iTunes.

SnapTell helps you find the best price for a book, CD or DVD you’re interested in buying. You use the iPhone camera to snap the cover, then SnapTell identifies the title from its database. It will deliver reviews and a rundown on prices, new and used, from the nearest local stores, Google, Barnes & Noble, eBay and Yahoo. It lets you comparison shop while you’re actually standing in the store, and–assuming it can get to the data, which is a BIG assumption–could be a boon to students trying to save money on textbooks, for example.

I tried out the SnapTell app on a few books and DVDs. As long as I was snaptelling stuff with a valid ISBN/ASIN number it seemed to work reasonably well.

It can’t do the impossible. A snaptell of corporate distributions, such as Bullseye Glass’ Connections video, generally returns a “No match found” error message or it picks the closest match in its database, which can be fun. One of Philippe Faraut’s excellent sculpting tutorials, The Art of Sculpting: Children (left), came back listed as Budapest at Night, a CD of Hungarian music by Sandor Lakatos and his Gypsy Band (right).

I can see the probable landmarks that SnapTell established between the two (the square photo, arch of the sculpture’s head, the bangs and the left temple, the neckline, etc). Corning’s latest DVD, Glass Masters at Work: Lino Tagliapietra, a documentary by Robin Lehman, shows up in SnapTell as a $400 textbook, Linear Motion Electromagnetic Devices for similar reasons. Still, those are mile-wide misses that demonstrate the problems inherent in relying on image matching alone.

If I need to compare prices on, say, the English version of Princess Mononoke, it could really come in handy. And it will also save time; I can snaptell an entry to a friend looking for a particular book much faster than I can type in how/why buy info on Gigi-the-iPhone’s lousy screenboard.

Of course, behind the noble purpose–saving money–lies clever marketeering. SnapTell comes from SnapTell, a SilliValley mobile marketing firm that’s using image matching and mobile phone cameras to drive marketing campaigns. Mobile cameraphone users snap photos of ads and products to learn more about them, and participating companies deliver the info along with messaging and branding reinforcement.

For companies, it’s a potentially very effective way to reach the mobile demographics, especially since anyone going to the trouble to take a picture of an ad is already at least partially sold. For users, it’s a fast way to get more information, coupons, freebies, etc., without touching a desktop PC. And since it’s inherently opt-in, it’s far more welcome (presumably) than mobile spam.

The downside for users, however, is the usual: Signing up is forever, and once a company has you in its database as interested, it’s up to THEM to stop. And there’s another con: Since SnapTell isn’t in the game for philanthropy, presumably whoever shows up on the SnapTell bookstore list is either a free resource or has paid to be there. No pay, no show.

That’s probably why the two most obvious book resources I use, Amazon.com and the local Powell’s, were nowhere to be found. Since I’ve no intention of downloading an app for every establishment I buy might something from, and since my consumer info is a valuable marketing currency, SnapTell is either gonna have to sell everybody or figure out how to provide comprehensive info and still make money. Google did it–let’s see what SnapTell comes up with.

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