Product Empire : a social network game that motivates users to scan barcodes and to enter basic product information, such as product name, brand and category and to upload a picture

Source

Towards an open product repository using playful crowdsourcing
Andreas Budde and Florian Michahelles
Information Management, ETH Zurich Scheuchzerstrasse 7, 8092 Zurich {abudde@ethz.ch, fmichahelles@ethz.ch}

Despite the ubiquity of barcodes there is no common product repository available today linking product master data to the corresponding barcodes. This paper proposes a social network game (Product Empire) that motivates users to scan barcodes and to enter basic product information, such as product name, brand and category and to upload a picture. A first prototype has been implemented and applied in an initial formative user study with 10 users who have generated 80 product scans with user-generated descriptions in a week time frame. This result shows the potential of generating an open product repository by motivating users with a game approach. Read the paper.