We rarely do product reviews at Smallbizlabs. But sometimes a product comes along that illustrates one or more trends we are following and we comment on it.
The Dymo business card scanner app for the iPhone is such a product. You download the app to your iPhone (they also support other smartphones) and when you take a picture of a business card it automatically adds the appropriate information to your contact list.
This product illustrates several interesting trends:
1. the growing use of smartphones as our remote controls for life and business.
2. the growing use of smartphone cameras as data entry devices. While reading 2D and 3D barcodes is probably the most common smartphone camera data entry use, the number of data entry uses are expanding rapidly.
3. the growing number of useful, low cost business applications for smartphones.
For people like me who constantly lose business cards, it is a cool application that also increases my productivity. It's also kinda fun to use.
And it is only $10.00.
The wave of mobile devices is definitely here. To add to the usefulness of mobile devices the recent release of the device that allows you to swipe credit cards will really take small businesses to the next level. You'll be able to process a customer's order and even email them the receipt from your vehicle. Within the next few years I think the scales are going to tip and more people will be accessing the internet from a mobile device than from a computer. This is the reason people need to take mobile marketing seriously and invest in a training course. One university that offers this is the University of San Francisco. You can find the info about it here http://www.usanfranonline.com/online-courses/mobile-media-training.aspx
Posted by: Joe | August 12, 2010 at 09:32 AM
I have not tried to use my cell phone as a remote control, but it would be interesting, infrared cell phone is needed?
Posted by: Reverse cell phone lookup | September 17, 2010 at 10:22 PM