All this talk about mobile marketing trying to beep people as they drive by the mall so they'll stop reminds us of something. The :CueCat!
:CueCat was a bizarre little barcode scanner that magazines began promoting in 2000 to connect print advertising to web sites. The idea was you'd be sitting at home, reading Forbes or Time, see a killer ad, and the ad would have a special bar code on it. Excited, you'd walk over to your computer, swipe the barcode with your :CueCat reader, and -- yes! -- your computer would immediately flip over to the appropriate web site. It was so convenient ... provided you walked to your computer, had the PC on, had the :CueCat tethered correctly, etc. etc. etc.
:CueCat died an ugly death because of complexity and privacy concerns. Luckily today's marketers are much smarter, building simple response pathways such as DRTV ads that required YouTube videos training you how to record the ads and slow them down, billboards that broadcast radio AM signals, and mobile marketing ads that beep you as you drive by malls encouraging you to stop and ... oh, never mind.
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