7 ms·

StickyBits: Add a bar code based history to any physical object

46 points by replicatorblog 17y ago

chaosmachine 17y ago
That's some nice web design. Lots of attention to detail. Cool product idea, too. Reminds me of Barcode Battler: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcode_Battler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcode_Battler
- replicatorblog 17y ago
  yeah, gorgeous design, really awesome name, and the product seems cool, though not sure how useful at this point? The number of things you would want to put big vinyl stickers on seems kind of small, but if this is the first step it is very exciting. Being able to track the provenance of an object unobtrusively (via RFID?) would be really neat.
  - megamark16 17y ago
    Well, from a business perspective, if you're a company with equipment (medical, electronics, tools, etc) you could have employee "check out" equipment with their phones. If you're a company that works with documents (engineering, legal, what have you) you could attach barcodes to physical copies (shoot, you could overlay them on the digital ones to so they print off with the doc itself) and use them to easily pull up a record of the document. These are just a few uses that come to mind, but basically anywhere that you need to identify something or someone, you could use this as a starting point and build out from there.
    - rodyancy 17y ago
      To target this use-case they would need to limit the number of wide-eyed, open mouthed monkeys they use on their sales page.
      - tophat02 17y ago
        No problem: take the same technology, rebrand it have a "business-oriented" name, make a different landing page, then sell both versions.
    - chrisa 17y ago
      That's what we do (track medical devices, pallets, documents, etc., with barcodes and RFID). The biggest barrier by far for this market is the status-quo: if you have to add even a few steps to employees’ current workflow, the project will have a much harder time getting off the ground.
      - LiveTheDream 17y ago
        You could implement this sort of tracking in a very non-intrusive way with RFID: put an RFID scanner in the supply room, which reads the employees' and equipments' RFID tags such that the monitoring system knows that employee X left room Y with equipment Z. Hasn't this sort of thing been in production for years with UPS/WalMart/etc?
        chrisa 17y ago
        Yes, we have a variety of rules and methods to do things like that, but you might be surprised at how many issues there still are. In the Wal-Mart case for example, they spent years trying to get compliance from their suppliers, and in the end they had to cut back on their goals and requirements because of the extra steps (and costs) needed. Also, RFID as a commercialized technology is still relatively new (even though it's been around for a long time), and there are a lot of technical hurdles that most people don’t know about. For example, a standard, Wal-Mart style RFID tag won't read if you hold it close to the body (or put it in a pocket), or put it on metal or liquid; in those cases, you have to use a special tag, or a battery assisted tag ("active rfid", which can be much more expensive), or an "RTLS" tag (wifi, ultra-wideband, etc). It's all really interesting (to me anyway), but the industry has had to spend quite a bit of time getting over all of the hurdles that are non-obvious (like any industry I suppose).
        LiveTheDream 17y ago
        Interesting to see some real-life perspective on this issue. Seems the trade-off is cost vs convenience.
jrnkntl 17y ago
First 'web 2.0' website I am seeing that is so well designed AND uses extensively tables for HTML markup. The site is basically one large image without any real text, so far for SEO.
- kordless 17y ago
  Yeah, the first thing I did was 'view source'. Sheesh, what a mess. Check out this: http://static.stickybits.com/web/images/fp_08.jpg http://static.stickybits.com/web/images/fp_08.jpg. Zero SEO value by putting text in images. For such a great design, it totally fails at implementation.
  - billychasen 17y ago
    To ensure the same type of experience across browsers, we decided to make much of the top images. Most people still use IE, and we didn't want gross rendered text. Also, I like tables :) They just work.
cracki 17y ago
i think the concept is kinda weak. i'd use a QR code with a link to a wiki page, if that's what this is. so they're proposing a wiki page for each unique bar code... that smells like wikipedia, but i don't see "business value" in it. that site looks like they're trying to market something, which means that they're trying to make money with this. i can't imagine how that's supposed to work.
- whalesalad 17y ago
  EDIT: Quite ironically... they use a QR code on the Android download page! http://www.stickybits.com/android/ http://www.stickybits.com/android/ QR codes for the win! Seems like the Android world has really latched onto this... with the iPhone kind of not so much. You can store a lot more data in a QR code. There are some handy tools for a common Android workflow which is, I'm at home and I need to bail real fast to catch a bus or head out, but I want the site I am viewing on my computer on my phone. I generate a quick QR code of the page, snap a pic with my phone, and leave. Here are some links: http://code.google.com/p/qrbookmarklet/ http://code.google.com/p/qrbookmarklet/ and http://servletsuite.blogspot.com/2008/11/qr-code-bookmarklet.html http://servletsuite.blogspot.com/2008/11/qr-code-bookmarklet... I built a simple tool here in Honolulu to enhance a service that does estimated arrival times. You can find it here - http://thebus.ws/about http://thebus.ws/about. One of the thing I want to do as a public service and because I am a bus nerd, is get some durable plastic tags printed out with a bazillion QR codes for every bus stop on the island, and mount them in a semi-secure fashion (punks are always gonna fuck with things.... but these will be cheap so who cares). That way when you're at a bus stop you can snap a pic of the QR code and load up the page with all the bus arrivals. GPS is even easier (which is how I am doing it right now, finding stops near you) but this is just another way to make things quicker. I wish we would adopt QR codes more here in the US of A... Japan uses them all over the place.
  - LiveTheDream 17y ago
    > I wish we would adopt QR codes more here in the US of A... Japan uses them all over the place. Agreed.
- 17y ago
sunkencity 17y ago
What a greap app! Fantastic design of the homepage as well. Interesting that they got that through the appstore. Didn't think they allowed barcode scanning apps, but maybe that was just amazon that didn't allow such apps. I think it's a good idea to build this app around fun, and then add the business aspects later. I would not be surprised though if this app is pulled from the appstore because of some bogus claim and that apple launches a similar feature with a selected partner, but more shopping oriented.
- caryme 17y ago
  There are plenty of barcode scanning apps, the best probably being RedLaser (http://redlaser.com/ http://redlaser.com/).
  - adamtmca 17y ago
    They use Redlaser's SDK.
    - jeffpowers 17y ago
      True. In fact we're working more closely with Stickybits to do more than just license them the RedLaser SDK. Stay tuned for more on that.
      - adamtmca 17y ago
        My cofounder and I are working on a product that, in part, replaces a piece of enterprise hardware with a QR code sticker so shaky reading isn't an option. We've been looking at the Red Laser sdk so hopefully we'll be in touch soon.
wesley 17y ago
The examples are a bit laughable.. "Attach your resume to your business card" - You could just add a web link instead and everyone would understand instead of limiting yourself to a very specific subset of users that know what to do with the barcode. (Same with "attach photos of what you're selling to a flyer") Plus, is there any type of control on these barcodes? Can I claim a barcode and not allow anyone to add anything else? That would be quite important if you're going to put it on a business card..
- billychasen 17y ago
  Yes, you can create websites and link to them, but it's cumbersome. With stickybits, you can just upload and you're done. And people see your resume immediately when scanned. Also, the first person to scan a barcode is the "moderator" and can delete any content that gets posted.
mscantland 17y ago
The main use-case I see for this is physical objects which already have a barcode. If you were going to go to the trouble of barcoding something yourself (e.g., business card), you'd be better off using a URL, where you'd be able to control what gets associated with the barcode, to say nothing of avoiding the chicken-egg issues with something like this.
jordanmessina 17y ago
This is actually the first major application that has aspects of it powered by SimpleGeo (as pointed out by Joe Stump here http://twitter.com/joestump/status/10224268993 http://twitter.com/joestump/status/10224268993). I think it's as big of an accomplish for SimpleGeo as it is for StickyBits. Both companies are doing some amazing things...
caryme 17y ago
This reminds me of the CueCat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CueCat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CueCat). From what I recall, the CueCat was born of the same idea, but was quite before its time (for example, it connected via PS/2).
- jordanmessina 17y ago
  Agreed, CueCat was well before its time. Dave Mathews (not the singer) was one of the creators of the CueCat and generally everything he does is well before its time.
norova 17y ago
Just as a heads up, www.stickybits.com is blocked by default in the NETGEAR UTM25. It is classified as a "pornograph/sexually explicit" web site. If any Stickybits people read this, you may want to bug them (Netgear) about clearing your name.
- norova 17y ago
  An update to this. I was able to get Netgear to reclassify the site, it should be accessible through all Netgear filters now. :)
Mc_Big_G 17y ago
Patent pending Seriously? A somewhat interesting use of bar codes, but not worthy of a patent.
tbgvi 17y ago
Seems interesting, it reminds me of delicious but for products. That to me is the best use case, like their example "Scan a cereal box barcode and attach your best treats recipe". The other ones, like putting a barcode on a birthday card, I'm not so sure about.
forkqueue 17y ago
Shame the Android app is Android 2.0+ only, which means I'm unable to try it with my Hero, at least for the moment.
- vyrotek 17y ago
  Well that explains why I couldn't download it on my Hero either. Indeed, a shame.
aristus 17y ago
The CueCat rides again, except now with spam potential. o_O

That's some nice web design. Lots of attention to detail. Cool product idea, too. Reminds me of Barcode Battler: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcode_Battler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcode_Battler

replicatorblog 17y ago
yeah, gorgeous design, really awesome name, and the product seems cool, though not sure how useful at this point? The number of things you would want to put big vinyl stickers on seems kind of small, but if this is the first step it is very exciting. Being able to track the provenance of an object unobtrusively (via RFID?) would be really neat.
- megamark16 17y ago
  Well, from a business perspective, if you're a company with equipment (medical, electronics, tools, etc) you could have employee "check out" equipment with their phones. If you're a company that works with documents (engineering, legal, what have you) you could attach barcodes to physical copies (shoot, you could overlay them on the digital ones to so they print off with the doc itself) and use them to easily pull up a record of the document. These are just a few uses that come to mind, but basically anywhere that you need to identify something or someone, you could use this as a starting point and build out from there.
  - rodyancy 17y ago
    To target this use-case they would need to limit the number of wide-eyed, open mouthed monkeys they use on their sales page.
    - tophat02 17y ago
      No problem: take the same technology, rebrand it have a "business-oriented" name, make a different landing page, then sell both versions.
  - chrisa 17y ago
    That's what we do (track medical devices, pallets, documents, etc., with barcodes and RFID). The biggest barrier by far for this market is the status-quo: if you have to add even a few steps to employees’ current workflow, the project will have a much harder time getting off the ground.
    - LiveTheDream 17y ago
      You could implement this sort of tracking in a very non-intrusive way with RFID: put an RFID scanner in the supply room, which reads the employees' and equipments' RFID tags such that the monitoring system knows that employee X left room Y with equipment Z. Hasn't this sort of thing been in production for years with UPS/WalMart/etc?
      - chrisa 17y ago
        Yes, we have a variety of rules and methods to do things like that, but you might be surprised at how many issues there still are. In the Wal-Mart case for example, they spent years trying to get compliance from their suppliers, and in the end they had to cut back on their goals and requirements because of the extra steps (and costs) needed. Also, RFID as a commercialized technology is still relatively new (even though it's been around for a long time), and there are a lot of technical hurdles that most people don’t know about. For example, a standard, Wal-Mart style RFID tag won't read if you hold it close to the body (or put it in a pocket), or put it on metal or liquid; in those cases, you have to use a special tag, or a battery assisted tag ("active rfid", which can be much more expensive), or an "RTLS" tag (wifi, ultra-wideband, etc). It's all really interesting (to me anyway), but the industry has had to spend quite a bit of time getting over all of the hurdles that are non-obvious (like any industry I suppose).
        LiveTheDream 17y ago
        Interesting to see some real-life perspective on this issue. Seems the trade-off is cost vs convenience.

jrnkntl 17y ago

First 'web 2.0' website I am seeing that is so well designed AND uses extensively tables for HTML markup. The site is basically one large image without any real text, so far for SEO.

kordless 17y ago
Yeah, the first thing I did was 'view source'. Sheesh, what a mess. Check out this: http://static.stickybits.com/web/images/fp_08.jpg http://static.stickybits.com/web/images/fp_08.jpg. Zero SEO value by putting text in images. For such a great design, it totally fails at implementation.
- billychasen 17y ago
  To ensure the same type of experience across browsers, we decided to make much of the top images. Most people still use IE, and we didn't want gross rendered text. Also, I like tables :) They just work.

cracki 17y ago

i think the concept is kinda weak. i'd use a QR code with a link to a wiki page, if that's what this is. so they're proposing a wiki page for each unique bar code... that smells like wikipedia, but i don't see "business value" in it. that site looks like they're trying to market something, which means that they're trying to make money with this. i can't imagine how that's supposed to work.

whalesalad 17y ago
EDIT: Quite ironically... they use a QR code on the Android download page! http://www.stickybits.com/android/ http://www.stickybits.com/android/ QR codes for the win! Seems like the Android world has really latched onto this... with the iPhone kind of not so much. You can store a lot more data in a QR code. There are some handy tools for a common Android workflow which is, I'm at home and I need to bail real fast to catch a bus or head out, but I want the site I am viewing on my computer on my phone. I generate a quick QR code of the page, snap a pic with my phone, and leave. Here are some links: http://code.google.com/p/qrbookmarklet/ http://code.google.com/p/qrbookmarklet/ and http://servletsuite.blogspot.com/2008/11/qr-code-bookmarklet.html http://servletsuite.blogspot.com/2008/11/qr-code-bookmarklet... I built a simple tool here in Honolulu to enhance a service that does estimated arrival times. You can find it here - http://thebus.ws/about http://thebus.ws/about. One of the thing I want to do as a public service and because I am a bus nerd, is get some durable plastic tags printed out with a bazillion QR codes for every bus stop on the island, and mount them in a semi-secure fashion (punks are always gonna fuck with things.... but these will be cheap so who cares). That way when you're at a bus stop you can snap a pic of the QR code and load up the page with all the bus arrivals. GPS is even easier (which is how I am doing it right now, finding stops near you) but this is just another way to make things quicker. I wish we would adopt QR codes more here in the US of A... Japan uses them all over the place.
- LiveTheDream 17y ago
  > I wish we would adopt QR codes more here in the US of A... Japan uses them all over the place. Agreed.
17y ago

sunkencity 17y ago

What a greap app! Fantastic design of the homepage as well. Interesting that they got that through the appstore. Didn't think they allowed barcode scanning apps, but maybe that was just amazon that didn't allow such apps. I think it's a good idea to build this app around fun, and then add the business aspects later. I would not be surprised though if this app is pulled from the appstore because of some bogus claim and that apple launches a similar feature with a selected partner, but more shopping oriented.

caryme 17y ago
There are plenty of barcode scanning apps, the best probably being RedLaser (http://redlaser.com/ http://redlaser.com/).
- adamtmca 17y ago
  They use Redlaser's SDK.
  - jeffpowers 17y ago
    True. In fact we're working more closely with Stickybits to do more than just license them the RedLaser SDK. Stay tuned for more on that.
    - adamtmca 17y ago
      My cofounder and I are working on a product that, in part, replaces a piece of enterprise hardware with a QR code sticker so shaky reading isn't an option. We've been looking at the Red Laser sdk so hopefully we'll be in touch soon.

wesley 17y ago

The examples are a bit laughable.. "Attach your resume to your business card" - You could just add a web link instead and everyone would understand instead of limiting yourself to a very specific subset of users that know what to do with the barcode. (Same with "attach photos of what you're selling to a flyer") Plus, is there any type of control on these barcodes? Can I claim a barcode and not allow anyone to add anything else? That would be quite important if you're going to put it on a business card..

billychasen 17y ago
Yes, you can create websites and link to them, but it's cumbersome. With stickybits, you can just upload and you're done. And people see your resume immediately when scanned. Also, the first person to scan a barcode is the "moderator" and can delete any content that gets posted.

mscantland 17y ago

The main use-case I see for this is physical objects which already have a barcode. If you were going to go to the trouble of barcoding something yourself (e.g., business card), you'd be better off using a URL, where you'd be able to control what gets associated with the barcode, to say nothing of avoiding the chicken-egg issues with something like this.

jordanmessina 17y ago

This is actually the first major application that has aspects of it powered by SimpleGeo (as pointed out by Joe Stump here http://twitter.com/joestump/status/10224268993 http://twitter.com/joestump/status/10224268993). I think it's as big of an accomplish for SimpleGeo as it is for StickyBits. Both companies are doing some amazing things...

caryme 17y ago

This reminds me of the CueCat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CueCat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CueCat). From what I recall, the CueCat was born of the same idea, but was quite before its time (for example, it connected via PS/2).

jordanmessina 17y ago
Agreed, CueCat was well before its time. Dave Mathews (not the singer) was one of the creators of the CueCat and generally everything he does is well before its time.

norova 17y ago

Just as a heads up, www.stickybits.com is blocked by default in the NETGEAR UTM25. It is classified as a "pornograph/sexually explicit" web site. If any Stickybits people read this, you may want to bug them (Netgear) about clearing your name.

norova 17y ago
An update to this. I was able to get Netgear to reclassify the site, it should be accessible through all Netgear filters now. :)

Mc_Big_G 17y ago

Patent pending Seriously? A somewhat interesting use of bar codes, but not worthy of a patent.

tbgvi 17y ago

Seems interesting, it reminds me of delicious but for products. That to me is the best use case, like their example "Scan a cereal box barcode and attach your best treats recipe". The other ones, like putting a barcode on a birthday card, I'm not so sure about.

forkqueue 17y ago

Shame the Android app is Android 2.0+ only, which means I'm unable to try it with my Hero, at least for the moment.

vyrotek 17y ago
Well that explains why I couldn't download it on my Hero either. Indeed, a shame.

aristus 17y ago

The CueCat rides again, except now with spam potential. o_O