“It’s such a fine line between stupid and clever.”<\/i>
\nDavid St. Hubbins, This is Spinal Tap<\/i><\/p>\n
Google is apparently experimenting with tiny barcodes that will sit next to newspaper advertisements and be scannable by mobile phone, so that you can “read” the code<\/a> and be whisked to some website where you can get an interactive coupon, a special deal on Star Wars memorabilia, etc. Apparently I’m not<\/a> the only one<\/a> who immediately had visions of the CueCat, an ungainly handheld scanner gizmo that some ridiculous company tried to foist on<\/a> newspaper readers back in the first bubble.<\/p>\n In the comments on a Silicon Alley Insider post<\/a> about the Google experiment, Henry Blodget says that CueCat was the single worst idea he ever heard<\/a> during Bubble 1.0 — and that’s saying a lot. I would have to agree (Allen Stern of Centernetworks, however, says that he thought it was a pretty good idea<\/a>, and still has one in his closet). If you want some technical information, there’s some at the Google FAQ<\/a>.<\/p>\n I know that there are a lot of people who are going to point out that they use barcodes like this all the time to buy things in Japan, but I would like to point out that not everything that is popular in Japan is good, and in support of that I would offer this<\/a> and most of these.<\/a><\/p>\n