Big in Japan

Happy Birthday Barcode!

amuse — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:52:15 +0000

Has it really been 35 years? The barcode turns 35 today! I can recall my mom showing me my first barcode when I was two years old and I thought, “Wow, that is going to be big.”

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We are hiring! iPhone Developer Wanted!

amuse — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:02:30 +0000

We are hiring a senior iPhone Developer (Dallas area applicants only, please).

Since 2005 Big in Japan has built web and mobile applications for great brands including MTV, LEGO, FOX and The Federal Reserve. In 2008 we decided to STOP building applications for other companies and START building applications for ourselves. By the summer of 2008 we decided to focus exclusive on mobile application development and our first application was ShopSavvy (barcode scanning price comparison on Android).

We are nearing launch of an iPhone version of ShopSavvy and we need to grow the team to deal with the workload that adding a second platform has added.

Do you live in the Dallas area? Are you interested in joining a nimble, but profitable startup on the verge of something huge? Do you have experience with Objective C development? Maybe a little java? We want to talk to you ASAP.

The position is fulltime and pays between $75,000 and $90,000 base plus bonus and stock options. We cover 100% of your health insurance premiums (health and dental).

Email the following information: - your availability (two weeks or immediate) - your salary requirements - your twitter ID - your LinkedIn Profile - your resume - brief explanation of your development experience to support@biggu.com

Help us launch ShopSavvy for iPhone!

amuse — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 21:16:46 +0000

Got an iPhone and want ShopSavvy? We are VERY close to being ready to submit ShopSavvy to the iTunes market, but we really need your help. We want to test our image recognition across a large number of actual iPhone cameras and barcodes. Our goal is to test on at least 1,000 iPhones and at least that many barcodes. You can help us - i.e. the faster we get this testing completed the faster we will submit ShopSavvy (oh and it will be free). Here is what we need:

Use your iPhone (tell us which version you have) to take a photo of a barcode.
Make sure you hold the camera about 3 inches from the barcode (not any farther please).
Title the file the number of the barcode i.e. 062338796823.jpg (this is important)
Email the file (with correct title) to support@biggu.com

If you can send one barcode we will be appreciative. If you can send ten we will forever be in your debt. Anyway, thanks for your help (in advanced). Please tell your friends to do the same.

ShopSavvy for iPhone Update

amuse — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:39:33 +0000

We know there is a huge demand for the ShopSavvy experience on the iPhone and we have been working on an iPhone release for some time. Our biggest hurdle has been to perfect barcode scanning using a fixed focal length camera. We are very close to finalizing our solution called Meatloaf. We looked at various ’server-side’ options - i.e. taking a photo, sending it to our servers here in Dallas and then sending the results back to the phone - but we determined that the ‘live’ scanning that our Android users are accustom to was the right direction. We had to come up with a solution that was 100% accurate and FAST - we call the project Meatloaf.

Many of you have surmized (via email and even on TechCrunch) that we will be able to launch on the iPhone 3Gs since it has a variable focal length camera (10cm). While our current solution would work fine on all of the new iPhones it would leave the 40,000,000 existing devices (Apple’s number, not mine) without a solution. Meatloaf; however, will work on both fixed and variable focus cameras - 100% coverage on all current and legacy devices.

Meatloaf will be even more important on Android because, as some of you likely noted, more and more Android handsets will ship with fixed focal length cameras. For example, AT&T is launching an Android phone called the HTC Lancaster which sports a ‘2 mega-pixel fixed focus camera’. Ouch. Any Android application that relies on the ‘traditional’ camera we have come to know and love on the G1 and Magic will be DOA on the AT&T devices. AT&T is the second-largest mobile provider in the US and the largest smartphone provider - your Android app needs to work on their phones, period.

Along with an updated solution for barcode scanning, the iPhone version of ShopSavvy will get a complete UI makeover. Smartphones are not equal and they each have strengths and weaknesses. Porting ShopSavvy over from Android would leave a lot to be desired so we spent a LOT of time making sure that ShopSavvy took advantage of all of the iPhone features and UI users have come to know and love. ShopSavvy is still ShopSavvy, but it is optimized for iPhone. Make sense? Here is a screenshot to give you an idea:

ShopSavvy on TechCrunch

amuse — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:19:55 +0000

MG Siegler over at TechCrunch wrote a nice post on ShopSavvy titled, “The New ShopSavvy: Faster, Bigger, Stronger!“ Thanks MG.

Recruiting Country Managers!

amuse — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 19:50:40 +0000

We are looking for local (i.e. local to their country) country managers to help us add online and local retailers to ShopSavvy. Our mobile price comparison application is one of the most popular on Android in the US and UK, but we need help everywhere else. It was easy to add retailers in the US since we live here, figuring out which to add in Australia is a lot harder for us. That is where you come in. Watch this short video and if you are still interested fill out our short application.

Interested? Fill out this short application.

Call for Android Presentors!

admin — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 18:32:54 +0000

Several of you have asked that we host another AndroidDevCamp here in Dallas. How about we host a MobileDevCamp (iPhone/Android/Palm) on a Saturday sometime this summer? Maybe July or August?

My thought is that we host a three track event:

Keynote: 10AM

Track 1: iPhone

11:00-11:30AM Session One iPhone
11:30-12:00AM Session Two iPhone
12:00-1:00PM Lunch/Break (Together)
1:00-2:00PM Workshop (Together)
2:00-3:30PM Session Three iPhone
3:30-4:00PM Session Four iPhone
4:00-5:00PM Networking/Drinks (Together)

Track 2: Android

11:00-11:30AM Session One Android
11:30-12:00AM Session Two Android
12:00-1:00PM Lunch/Break (Together)
1:00-2:00PM Workshop (Together)
2:00-3:30PM Session Three Android
3:30-4:00PM Session Four Android
4:00-5:00PM Networking/Drinks (Together)

Track 3: Palm Pre

11:00-11:30AM Session One Pre
11:30-12:00AM Session Two Pre
12:00-1:00PM Lunch/Break (Together)
1:00-2:00PM Workshop (Together)
2:00-3:30PM Session Three Pre
3:30-4:00PM Session Four Pre
4:00-5:00PM Networking/Drinks (Together)

If you are interested in hosting one of the sessions please ping me ASAP. Just explain what you plan to discuss and tell me a little about yourself (a short bio would be nice). Email: amuse@biggu.com

Problems with Android Market?

admin — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 15:13:45 +0000

We need your help! We get one or two emails each day from users who can’t find ShopSavvy in the Android Market. There are mentions of this problem in the Android Market support forums, but our contacts at Google can’t replicate the issue (we were able to replicate it once very early on, but not recently). This is worrisome, because most users won’t even realize that ShopSavvy is missing because they aren’t looking for it. How many downloads are we missing? No one knows.

We get lots of emails - positive and negative - and we have learned to take many of them with a grain of salt. But yesterday, our friends at Amazon reported the ‘missing Android app issue’ and they were adamant that ShopSavvy was missing from their Android Market application.

How can you help? Please visit the market right now. Look under All Applications and sort by popularity. Take a picture of that screen (screen grab or just a plain photo) and email it to support@biggu.com - let us know if ShopSavvy was missing. Your help is much appreciated. If we can replicate the problem on a large scale a) we will know there is a real problem and b) our friends at Google might be able to figure out what is going on. In the meantime if you don’t have ShopSavvy and can’t find it in the market just Download ShopSavvy Here.

Update: lots of you have reported the problem since this post. Thanks for your help. Here is an example of ShopSavvy missing from the Android Market:

National Public Radio Needs You!

amuse — Thu, 28 May 2009 17:44:10 +0000

Are you a ShopSavvy user living in the DC area (including MD or VA)? Would you like to be on NPR? Yuki Noguchi from NPR wants to do a story about comparison shopping using cell phones. She wants to follow you as you shop in the capital area. How about it? Give ShopSavvy some love? Get your 15 minutes of fame? Email Yuki Noguchi with your contact info: ynoguchi@npr.org Thanks!

Big in Japan Schedule

admin — Wed, 27 May 2009 19:07:11 +0000

The Big in Japan team is splitting duties this week. Rylan and me (Alex) are in San Francisco at Google IO living the Android dream. Jason is back in Dallas, but will virtually be in Singapore at the CodeAndroid Meetup (via Skype). Want to connect with us at Google IO? Just email or txt amuse@biggu.com or 214.558.1079.

On a side note Scott and Cathy, our PR team, just had a baby boy named Benjamin (6lbs14oz.) check him out on Flickr. Congrats to Scott and Cathy!!! Welcome Benjamin!