In the beginning, there was an idea: To provide a web service for app developers that would let them get basic product information – like a title and category – for a product which they only have a bar code for. I imagined that this could be the basis for a plethora of niche apps, each serving a different kind of niche: keep track of your books, CDs, games. Keep your inventory current, never again miss some food expiration date.
I thought that many app developers would have many users and those users would then add products to the global database if they encounter one that couldn’t be resolved. Monetization would be done from app developers who had the most web API traffic and at a later stage from letting product manufacturers analyse the sentiment about their products.
