Starting this week, Google has mailed window stickers to a few 100,000 local businesses all over US. These window stickers contain barcodes to uniquely identify the place. Google calls these businesses '
'. If your iPhone has one of the barcode reading apps, all you need to do is scan the barcode (called QR codes) and you will be able to read all important information about the business like phone number, directions, reviews from other Google users about the place, etc. What's more, businesses can also offer discount coupons to users visiting their page from Google.
Though the number of businesses covered is not very big at the moment, Google has indicated that it will gradually be scaling up to include a lot more places. The prioritization is done with the help of what Google calls PlaceRank which is something similar to Google's PageRank algorithm except that in this case the businesses are ranked based on the prominence of the place on the web with factors like images, reviews, pictures, how long it has been around, etc.
The concept is certainly innovative. But is it exciting? Not much. With increasing proliferation of technologies like GPS on smartphones, there needs to be a much simpler way of looking up for information. To elaborate, consider this. With Google's Favorite Places, there are a lot of roadblocks to finding information – like the need to have a barcode reading
, the need to walk up to the cafe's entrance to read reviews and so on. Compare this to how
works. All you need to do in order to look up for information is point your iPhone towards the place from your car and you get all the information you need. That is a much simpler and futuristic approach that Google could have adopted.
Nevertheless, the idea looks promising and we see a lot of businesses already wanting to get featured. Here is a demo on how the app works:
Do let us know what you think.