eBay has acquired RedLaser, a popular barcode-scanning application for iPhone, and related technology from Occipital (blog). With over two million downloads, RedLaser is the top-selling iPhone barcode-scanning application for comparison shopping and finding product information using a mobile device. Terms for the deal were not disclosed.
eBay plans to integrate RedLaser’s barcode-scanning technology into its iPhone applications, including its eBay Marketplace, eBay Selling, StubHub and Shopping.com applications. The eBay Selling application for the iPhone will be the first iPhone application to take advantage of RedLaser’s barcode-scanning technology for mobile users to sell items online.
eBay is immediately transitioning RedLaser from a paid application to a free standalone application. The company also plans to significantly increase selection on RedLaser by integrating more than 200 million listings from eBay, as well as product inventory from over 7,000 global merchants on Shopping.com, including 95 of the top 100 online retailers.
The RedLaser technology is being used in a wide variety of applications including grocery shopping lists, gift registries, and nutritional tracking. eBay plans on increasing developer support of the RedLaser technology in the future.
The acquisition of the RedLaser application builds on eBay Inc.’s momentum and innovation in mobile commerce. In 2010, eBay released an iPad application and three new iPhone apps: eBay Selling, eBay Classifieds and StubHub. eBay Inc. is a global leader in mobile commerce with $1.5 billion in gross merchandise volume (GMV) expected in 2010 through its mobile platforms. eBay’s mobile applications are available to millions of iPhone, BlackBerry and Android users in more than 190 countries and eight languages. A mobile purchase is made every two seconds via eBay’s mobile applications.
Location: USA, San Jose, CA
Ref: F231109-521
Related Article – eBay Inc. Completes Sale of Skype to investor group led by Silver Lake Posted on November 19, 2009
June 30, 2010 at 10:18 pm
What on earth is eBay dabbling in all this new technology for—these headless turkeys can’t even get their principal marketing web site to work properly.
What possible good is RedLaser to eBay. Due to eBay’s constant fee increases, prices on eBay are no longer likely to be the best available. Merchants surely aren’t going to direct buyers to eBay when they can direct them to their own sites, or elsewhere, and avoid eBay’s ever higher and higher profit-sucking fees.
Why then would anyone (even eBay) want to promote a technology that is probably going to direct buyers away from their own principal site? Then, we have to assume that this most unscrupulous organization, eBay that is, won’t fiddle with the algorithm to favor themselves, don’t we? Sounds like another “Skype” purchase to me. Oh, sorry, I forgot, PayPal is going to be eBay’s major growth area in the future. Oh yeah, dream on …
You think that 1989 San Bernardino train disaster and its aftermath was spectacular? In my crystal ball I can see an eBay train wreck approaching; it’s due to arrive in the evening of 21 July; this one’s going to be as horrifically spectacular; but as horrific as it is going to be, you simply won’t be able to look away. Mark your diary so you don’t forget to watch, and have your video camera on the ready (catch the train driver—that’s the one behaving like an excited chimpanzee—waving his arms around in the air)—you may be able to sell the footage to the WSJ. (But, don’t worry, if you do happen to miss this event, there will be a repeat episode on 21 October.)
If nothing else it will be interesting to hear who John Donahoe blames this time for the fiasco (if you can find any mention of it) that has been eBay’s IT operation since April Fools Day; undoubtedly his creative reporting will show that it was all the fault of all those many unwashed, irritating, ignorant, “noisy”, flea-market passengers travelling in third-class—not the criminal fool driving the train, Donahoe himself, of course …
More fun with the ‘eBafia Don’ at:
http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=6502877