Improved Froogle Still Wide of the Mark

A post on the Google Blog mentions the "enhanced" version of Froogle Mobile. It's not really clear what's exactly been enhanced, but it still looks pretty underwhelming.

Froogle's a no-brainer for mobile; it seems like something like this should be very popular. After all, how often do people see something in a store and wonder "how much is that online?" The problem is that Froogle's pretty weak. It's simple and straightforward: you type in what you're looking for (ok, that might not be so simple), and hit search. That's all well and good, but why not make it read barcodes through the cameraphone? That might be some cutting-edge functionality (actually, not really -- Semacode already has a reader for Java phones), but as part of Google Labs, shouldn't it be?

Amazon already has an application like this in Japan, and I'd imagine a similar one in the West would drive plenty of sales of the company's staples -- books, CDs and DVDs. But adding this functionality to a non-vendor-specific service like Froogle would be better for consumers, and would help solve one of Froogle's bigger problems: its results.

The results pages can be pretty bad. While the page I get at first when I search for "ipod shuffle" is pretty okay, it's not sorted by price -- and if I'm using Froogle, aren't I interested in finding the lowest price? When I switch to sort by lowest price, the page it gives me are some $4 silicone covers for iPod Shuffles. I've got no idea how far I have to go before I find the real listings, because I'm on GPRS and I don't want to spend the time waiting.

Adding in barcode reading eliminates this problem because there's no ambiguity about what I'm looking for -- the product that belongs to this unique barcode. It saves time, makes things easier and ultimately makes Froogle much, much cooler and more useful. As things stand with its basic WML page, it's hard to imagine it's getting much use.

These are the kind of real-world connections mobile needs, hooks to bridge the physical and mobile worlds. Companies like Semacode that are working on barcode-reading applications may start by offering people a way to make nifty little QR codes to send people to their Web site, but it goes much deeper than that. Price information is but one possibility for product lookup; the Japanese are also tracking fish meat via QR code. They're also using QR codes on TV shows for promos and contests and RFID to distribute tourist information.