With the release of our latest ScanLife app, you can help the ScanLife community discover the very best by liking the items you scan.  Plus, you can save all of your favorites to your Facebook page for later.

To get you all in the social holiday spirit, we bring to you the ‘Like it to Win’ Holiday Giveaway, a simple way to win big during the shopping season.

Here’s how to play:
1) Scan any barcode or QR Code

2) Click the “heart” icon located  at the top of your screen (make sure you’re connected to Facebook in order for it to count. You can also do this in the ‘Settings’ tab in your ScanLife app)

3) You’re now automatically entered to win!

We will give away a $50 Amazon gift card every day, plus a $500 Grand Prize. The more you scan, the better chance you have to win!

Our Daily Winners:

11/21 – Don G.

11/22 – Mariam B.

11/23 – Kelly M.

11/24 – Philippe O.

11/25 – Kellie R.

11/26 – Lorena J.

11/27 – Joe C.

11/28 – Lauren B.

11/29 – Ashley C.

11/30 – Sherry N.

12/1 – Andrew B.

12/2 – Dominik O.

12/3 – Shannon A.

Stay tuned for more winners – it could be you!

Rules & Regulations:

• The contest starts on Tuesday, November 20th and is scheduled to end December 3rd at Midnight EST.
• You may enter as often as you would like, the more items you like, the better chance you have to win.
• The giveaway is open to anyone in the world who is over the age of 18.
• You must connect to your Facebook account from the ScanLife app for your likes to be counted. This can be done from Settings or More.
• If you are selected winner, you will be sent an email with details on how to claim your gift card. You must respond within 48 hours to claim your prize.
• Scanbuy will not use or share, with a third party, any information collected for direct marketing purposes. We respect the privacy rights of individuals.
• Scanbuy employees and friends/family of employees are not eligible.

Well, the big iPhone 5 announcement has been made and now millions debate if and when they will get the latest gadget from Apple.  At ScanLife, we are extremely excited for the release of the iPhone 5 and iOS 6 for many obvious reasons.  Of all the new features, the one we are most thrilled about is Passbook.  We believe it’s the best thing that could happen for the mobile barcode industry because it will continue to expose this technology to millions of people around the world.

If you are not familiar with Passbook, here’s a quick recap from what we can tell:

• It has wallet-like features that store some of the most important items in our lives, including boarding passes, loyalty cards, coupons, event tickets, and more.
• Basically, anything that typically has a barcode could load into Passbook.  A Safari web page or an app can enable the Pass Kit Framework that would allow any device with iOS 6 to save redeemable information.
• For example, you could buy a ticket from American Airlines, and at the end of the transaction they could prompt iOS 6 users to save the boarding pass to Passbook.  Or, the Target app can send a coupon to Passbook and remind you when you are about to walk in their store using your location.
• In most cases, this information will be passed in the form of a barcode – the code formats available are QR Code, PDF-417, and Aztec – all code formats that are readable by the most common standards
• Passbook does NOT include a barcode scanner – so people will still need to download apps like ScanLife
• It will be available to anyone that has iOS 6 – extending beyond the iPhone 5

So what does this all really mean?  To us, it means that Apple has reaffirmed that the barcode is completely mainstream today as it’s simple to use for millions of people around the world.  Apple’s SVP Phil Schiller was quoted as saying, “Passbook does the kinds of things customers need today.” Barcodes are simple, they don’t require new hardware, and people are familiar with how they work.

The release of this new framework, also opens new doors for advanced services that barcodes enable, such as mCommerce, mPayments, and mIdentity, and more. When Apple included Twitter in their native OS, they reported that new Twitter accounts increased by 25% per month!  Given the massive number of iOS users, we expect mobile barcode awareness to increase sharply in the coming months which will drive even greater innovation and adoption of the technology by brands, developers, and consumers alike.

Thank you Apple!  What do you all think?

Anticipation is building for the 2012 Summer Olympics, and it looks like fans will be gearing up with QR Codes.  This first ad ran last week in the local newspapers and links to a nifty mobile landing page where you can browse for Olympic hats, t-shirts, pins, and more – all by scanning a QR Code!  Plus you can Like on Facebook or Follow on Twitter.  They even added the Olympic logo in their code!

Try it out yourself, and get into the Olympic spirit.  We hear there is more QR Code Olympic action to come very soon…

We have just released the latest ScanLife Mobile Barcode Trend Report for Q4 2011. This edition takes a closer look at the busiest quarter of the year for mobile barcodes and some year-end growth comparisons to 2010.

One of the report’s highlights shows the “hockey stick” growth of scans by quarter dating all the way back to Q1 2009. Last year saw a 300% increase compared to 2010. Looking at the chart below, its pretty amazing to see just how far mobile barcode scanning has come these past few years.

The holiday season proved to be another huge period for engaging new users as people are searching for product information and millions of new Smartphones were activated.

Other key takeaways from this report:

• Q4 2011 saw more scans than all of 2009 and 2010 combined
• Over 3,000,000 new ScanLife users were activated in Q4 2011

• Among marketers using the ScanLife platform, the Consumer Packaged Goods industry saw the most scans for the first time ever
• Half of our users report being 18-34, and 60% are male which is consistent with the previous report

A HUGE thank you to everyone to everyone who made these numbers possible!  This data is compiled from our platform users, app users, and other 3rd party apps/code generators.

You can download the full report here.

Be a fan, and scan for your team to win the Big Game!

The codes above use ScanLife smart code technology which processes the number of scans per code and converts them into voting results.

ScanLife 4.0, includes a couple cool new features to make barcode scanning a bit more fun for the holiday season.  One feature allows users to customize the scanner screen by selecting from themes like “Top Gun” and “Holiday Cheer”.  Just go to the Settings screen in the app to change it any time!

Current theme examples from our app:

Now we want YOU to design the next custom Scanner Theme and be seen by millions of ScanLife users around the globe!

So whether you’re a Photoshop expert or just have a knack for basic design, we want to see your ideas.   Make it fun, make it cool, make it colorful – whatever you want!  Just remember to leave some open space in the center of the screen so you can see what you’re scanning…

What do you get?

The winner will receive a $200 Gift Card and have their personal Scanner design embedded in the next release of the ScanLife app for iPhone and Android!

Rules to Enter

1. Create any kind a visual representation of your idea – can be a rough representation or a finished design, but we need more than text.
2. Upload your design to our Facebook wall – www.facebook.com/scanlife
3. Get as many Likes as you can which will influence the final judging

Entries will be taken until January 1st, 2012.

Now get creative and good luck!  If you don’t have the current ScanLife app, just go to www.getscanlife.com from your mobile device.

Black Friday to Christmas is always the busiest time for retailers, and it is for us also!   Now that the dust has settled (a bit) from the opening party (aka Black Friday, and now “Cyberweek”), we wanted to share some interesting stats.

First we should say that the 10 days from 11/24-12/4 were record breaking days which saw scan rates as high as 8 per second.  We also recorded our biggest single scan day ever on Black Friday which was very exciting!

Some other fun facts:

• Scan rates were up 158% versus year ago (both 1D & 2D), with QR Code scanning up 263%.  This just shows how many more QR Codes are in the market versus a year ago.
• The top 5 US cities scanning were:  Orlando, Houston, San Antonio, New York, & Chicago
• Scans by OS were dominated by Android (47%) and iPhone (43%) with BlackBerry and others making up the remaining 10%
  
• Black Friday by Time of Day:
  • Biggest spike was at 1:00 AM EST as doors opened for Midnight sales in the Central Time zone.  Apparently those hard core shoppers are using all the tools to find the best deals!
  • Busiest time block was from 12-2 EST with 18% of all scans that day
• Top 3 electronics products being scanned (from UPC codes):
  • iPhone 4Gs (16 GB)
  • Nikon Coolpix
  • Garmin Nuvi GPS

Thanks to all of our users for being part of these momentous numbers, and keep scanning!

If you don’t already have the ScanLife app, check it out from www.getscanlife.com. 

We’ve been working hard on some cool features to make your ScanLife app experience better than ever.  We’ve packaged it all up to give you ScanLife 4.0  right before the holiday shopping season to make it easier and more fun to scan QR Codes, UPC codes, and more.   It is now available for Android and iPhone as of today!

Here’s what you’ll find:

• View a Live Feed of products being scanned around the world in real time (screenshot below).  Click a product to view more info just like you scanned it.
• Ability to choose themed scanners such as a “Top Gun” or “Holiday Cheer”
• Delete individual items in History, or clear all (new for Android)
• Access to additional product reviews from retailers like Best Buy and price comparisons from Buy.com
• Access to nutritional facts and ingredients directly from brands like Coca-Cola, Kraft, and Pepsi (US only)
• Capability to share deals and products on Facebook and Twitter
• A completely redesigned user interface when reviewing product information
• Even faster scanning for UPC and QR Codes

Live Feed:

Product Results:

You can download the app from your stores, or even better just scan this code and we’ll send you to the right store using our OS Detection filter!

We’re thrilled to announce the release of the ScanLife Mobile Barcode Trend Report for Q3 2011. This edition marks the one year anniversary of the inaugural report, so we have  focused on how far mobile barcodes have come in the past 12 months.

One of the report’s highlights is the total number of scans processed by ScanLife to date. Through September, we’ve seen over 20 million scans, representing a 400% increase from 2010 during the same time period. This massive number shows just how explosive growth has been for mobile barcodes.

Other key takeaways from this report:

• 2D code activity continues to rise at an impressive rate, as 44,653 2D codes were generated from the ScanLife platform in Q3 of this year.

• Another demonstration of scan growth is around our single largest customer campaign.  A year ago the largest campaign saw 65,000 scans and in Q3 a customer completed a 6-week campaign that netted over 400,000 scans.
• The number of countries scanning in a single day also increased from 77 to 128, a 66% increase.

• Female scans increased by 13% and now represent over 40% of the ScanLife mobile app audience.
• Over the past year, the Grocery (food & drink) category jumped from 14% to 40% in all 1D products scanned.

A big thank you to everyone who made these numbers possible!

You can download the full report here.

Frito Lay just launched a brand new program to get people using their products in a whole new way – by scanning the bag!  All you need to do is pick up a current bag of Lay’s Original, Sunchips, or Tostito’s Scoops, open up the ScanLife app, and scan the UPC code right on the back of the package.

After you scan, you can learn more about “Our Promise” from Frito Lay which is “the belief that all can benefit from doing good.”  The barcode will show a video of how the potatoes are grown by local farmers to how the chips are made in an all natural ways.  It will also give you some great recipes to try at home.

Many of our customers use a QR Code to take people to this kind of content, but you can’t forget that 1/3 of our scans come from UPC codes, and it is already on millions of products so you don’t have to change a thing.  They are also doing a great job by sharing this new feature through their social networks, and it doesn’t hurt to have 2.1 million fans!

Don’t forget that you have to have the ScanLife app with any AF phone like iPhone 3GS and above, any Android, and most newer BlackBerry’s – pretty much this describes a majority of our users.  Just go to getscanlife.com from your device if you don’t have the app already.

Happy scanning – and snacking!!