Google print ads: Return of the CueCat
The reinflation of the tech bubble has revived old business plans, but here's one that should have stayed dead. Google wants to bring back scannable barcodes on printed ad pages that could be read with its Android phone software. Sound familiar?
Digital Convergence, which tried this in 2000 with a crude PC-connected scanner, flamed out for lack of interest. Thousands of people still keep its CueCat barcode scanners as a relic of the '90s boom. The folks at Google now working on its print ads are likely too young to own a CueCat. Too bad.
The idea is compelling: It's difficult to track the effect a magazine ad has on people who read it. The strength of Google's advertising is the feedback loop which teaches its systems which ads are most effective. Scanning a printed ad would be equivalent to clicking its Web page counterpart.
But Google's implementation still requires a phone with a camera, a software installation, and a data plan for Web access. That's not the majority of phone users, even in 2008.
There's a simpler, cheaper solution: Text messaging is nearly ubiquitous. Google could simply print a text-messsage code, like the one Fox uses for voting on American Idol, on the ads. I suspect Google didn't choose this approach because it's too simple, too unchallenging. It requires no deep engineering, no bullying of partners, no change in consumer behavior, no fawning over Google's latest genius idea. The move reflects the mindset of the company's overachiever staff: Google can never just do the job. They have to be different.
