As consumer product brands explore digital, connecting real life products to interactive elements online has become increasingly important. One startup in contention to do just that is Stickybits.

Stickybits lets people connect barcodes with any piece of digital information they can create. When the company launched at SXSW in February, the technology was in place, but the full potential of the product was not yet a reality. Today at CM Summit in New York, Stickybits announced the brand partnerships that can actually make it a successful and useful business.

Stickybits was the hot new startup at SXSW in Austin this year, but at launch it was still something of a novelty. The company handed out free barcode stickers and soon there was Stickybit data all over Austin’s convention center. It was definitely a fun product, but difficult for some to get their head around scalable applications.

Now the brand model is ready for business. Seth Goldstein, the company’s chairman and cofounder, uses Foursquare to explains how Stickybits works:

“Foursquare turns locations into media. Stickybits turns objects into media through barcodes.”

There are plenty of fun and inventive applications for Stickybits, but it’s brand partnerships that will make it scalable and make the use case more obvious.

Today, the company announced “official bits,” which allow brands to automatically own their barcodes, so that consumers are sent to branded information when they scan any partner barcode.

When Stickybits launched, anyone could take ownership of a brand’s barcode. I spoke with founder Billy Chasen at the time, and as he said:

“The first person that attaches to the code
is considered the moderator
and can delete anything that’s added afterwards. Soon we’ll have ways
for brands to manage their Stickybits. Right now we’ve launched the
consumer model.”

Individuals can still update and play with branded stickybits, but starting today, brands can moderate and guide the conversation, which is a big step.

Making Stickybits an integral part of digital barcode sharing depends on partnerships with large brands. Says Goldstein:

“What we imagine for consumer product companies, is that now that product on the shelf becomes a media channel.”

The company’s first partner is Pepsi. Working with such a large brand, that has been making a lot of smart moves in digital, is a great step for Stickybits.

They’re also working with Campbell’s soup and they’re ad agency BBDO to create new ways to communicate and share recipes. Says Goldstein:

“I think Stickybits represents a whole new way of thinking of the connection between the physical world and the digital world.”

And with brands actively pointing customers to their data on a massive scale, it opens up the possibility that Stickybits will be an integral part of the digital conversation going forward.

Images: Stickybits

Posts from the Econsultancy blog

I’ve gathered together some of the latest stats on iPhone and iPad usage in one handy post. I’ve also added a selection of mobile stats from our most recent Internet Statistics Compendium…

Worldwide distribution of iPhones (AdMob Mobile Metrics report)

• In the US there was a 2 to 1 ratio of iPhone OS devices to Android OS devices. Worldwide the ratio of iPhone OS devices to Android devices was 3.5 to 1.
• There were 11.6m unique Android OS devices and 27.4m iPhones worldwide in the AdMob network in April 2010. When you add the iPod touch and iPad to the figures, the number of iPhone OS devices jumps to 40.8m worldwide.

Publishers’ iPad app sales (Guardian)

• The Times iPad edition sold 5,000 copies in the three days after its launch, at £9.99 per download. Rupert Murdoch says that the Wall Street Journal now has 10,000 customers paying per month. 
• The FT has had 130,000 downloads of its free iPad app since its launch two weeks ago. Another free app, The Guardian’s Eyewitness, has had 90,000 downloads. 
• Wired sold 24,000 copies of its iPad app in the first 24 hours after release. 

How do iPhone users discover apps? (AdMob)

• 62% find apps by searching for a specific type of app, 60% browse through the App Store charts, 40% receive word of mouth recommendations, 20% see ads in other apps, while 19% read about apps in the press or on blogs. 
• 93% of iPhone users download iPhone Applications directly on their phone. Only 7% of users download via iTunes and upload to the phone. 
• Click on image for larger version:

Posts from the Econsultancy blog

Today’s linklove is brought to you by swelteringconditions.com, lashings of ice
cream and the cheapest of cheap sunglasses. London is HOT today.

Here are a few
things that have caught our eye lately…

European online ad spend continues to grow, albeit more slowly than before.

Yelp reveals iPhone stats, and they’re stunning. More than a quarter of all Yelp searches now originate via the iPhone.

Is Digg dead? Well, is it?

The Daily Mail stands accused of thievery by SEO A-lister Danny Sullivan.

Want to launch a WordPress video site? Here’s a neat checklist of video themes.

Another WordPress-related link: I’m in the process of installing the incredibly powerful Thesis theme (more on that in due course) and found this list of ‘100 resources for Thesis’. Looks promising.

Bryan Eisenberg’s excellent tips on creating a successful PPC campaign. The basics, but solid insight, as ever.

Interesting thoughts from Danny Whatmough on why PR doesn’t need pesky journalists anymore.

Gemma Went asked her Twitter followers to suggest one piece of business advice. 100 tweets later she wrote a blog post…

The BBC has launched a charming World Cup Predictor Tool. Just don’t use it on your iPad, as it is Flash-based and looks rubbish. As you can see, I am a horrendous optimist.

The most awful ‘Place Your Order’ page ever seen (unless you have any other examples?). Spotted by eagle-eyed Dan Barker.

And just so you know, when I retire I want to be able to do this in my back garden…

Posts from the Econsultancy blog