This is the first of what will probably be a series of posts. I'm going to call it the Poof! Series. I have found that there are several things that should just happen to make life easier or more seamless and I will post them as they come to me.
One area I want improvement in is using lists. I have gotten better at keeping lists of things that I need and organizing them by store, but my problem is that I always forget to bring the list(s) with me. Not very useful... I either forget it at home when I leave, or don't even have it with me when I have time to run errands. We already have ways to create and manage lists efficiently and they can even be sent to our mobile units. So what more can I want? Smart lists! I want my mobile unit (phone, PDA, whatever) to be able to tell which store I just walked into and from that, bring up items from my list(s) that I can purchase there. What would be even better is if it could also display the prices of those items in the store or even the aisle it was located in!
How awesome would that be to walk into Target and have your phone display your list?
Paper towels $1.99 aisle 5
Toothpaste $2.49 aisle 9
lamp shade $2.99 aisle 21
puffs $1.99 aisle 5
(as you can tell, I would probably not be good on the Price is Right)
If it's doing this much already, why not have it sort the list by location so I don't have to go back to aisle five 20 times to get all of my paper products? Ooo I'm getting goosebumps!
As an incentive for the stores, maybe they could throw in related items that I might want to buy just like ads anywhere else we go nowadays.
In future revisions of this application of technology, I would like to see price comparisons done using the current store you are in and other stores that you frequent. This would be a great way to make buying essentials less tedious and Poof! have a useful list.
This post was brought to you by the Poof! Series.
4 comments:
Oh sweet, Blogger finally fixed their stupid bug where beta users couldn't post on non-beta blogs.
I like this idea a lot, having been a dedicated list user for years. Now, I think I smell some patent money using a combination of RFID and this...
Yeah, I'd love to patent and market this idea. It could be implemented pretty easily and it would be a win-win-win for consumers, tech producers and stores.
The tools are all already there:
1) PDA / Hand-Held with GPS
2) Company location information available via HTTP POST request
3) Translation of common addresses to coordinates
You need only put them together and write a mobile device software program to utilize all three. You could even give the option of using well-known stores' in-stock HTTP request (such as Best-Buy/Wal-Mart) and specifying what stores to price-compare directly on the device.
Nice idea. Can I have this in my Bluetooth enabled watch? I don't want to carry a phone or a PDA :)
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