Well, We Didn't Mean It That Way, But…

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, July, 2001 by Whitney Joiner

REMEMBER CUECAT, THE MOUSE-SIZED BAR CODE SCANNER that was going to blow the top off magazine advertising? So far, it hasn't performed as well as the manufacturer hoped--but a magazine marketer's failure has become a hacker's golden opportunity.

When Houston startup Digital:Convergence released the CueCat late last summer, the company promised that the device would "revolutionize the way people interact with the World Wide Web." It seemed especially suited for the media business: simply plug a CueCat into your computer, swipe a magazine page, and you're transported to a Web site that either relates to the story, or--more likely--to the site of a company advertised in the magazine. It would be an advertiser and publisher's dream: an easy way to get magazine readers to actually interact with advertising.

It didn't work that way. CueCat users had a number of complaints--each swipe of the scanner was tracked by Digital:Convergence, raising privacy concerns, and many times the Cat coughed up a furball and didn't scan the codes correctly. And who reads magazines while sitting at a computer anyway? Plus, the gadget just looked funny. Pink, slim and rounded, the CueCat resembled--well, you figure it out.

But what began in part as a magazine marketing tool has become a geek plaything. CueCat--or, at least, its technology--is in the news again.

Digital:Convergence has opened its bar code scanner technology up to hackers. Not that they could help it: as soon as CueCats emerged, given away for free to Fortune and Wired subscribers and Radio Shack customers, industrious techies began experimenting with the scanner, taking it apart and repurposing it. The CueCat's technology is now being used for everything from cataloguing home libraries to tracking UPS packages. Instead of fighting the unofficial developers, Digital:Convergence has encouraged them--the company has even started a Web site for the hackers: www.crq.com/developers. The technology might not have revolutionized magazine marketing, but, hey, if you can't beat 'em....