HERE’S MY BIGGEST GRIPE about technology: Unnecessary devices that greedy corporations try and pass off on the public as cutting edge convenience.
So it is with a silly little thing called Cue Cat, a sort of mini-scanner that a bunch of big national magazines, media companies, and major corporations have been giving away to anyone they can talk in to taking one. Boosters include Radio Shack, Coca-Cola Co., Young & Rubicam Inc. advertising, NBC Inc., Belo Corp., and E.W. Scripps Co.
The idea is that consumers will plug the five-inch-long CueCat scanner into their PC’s, then use it to scan special bar codes printed on magazine advertisements, which will then open the computer’s web browser and take you directly to the advertiser’s website. The CueCat also can also be connected to a TV set, using audio signals in TV programs to access websites on a PC.
The company that came up with this idea, Digital Convergence, calls it . . . I kid you not . . . “the biggest computer innovation since the mouse.” So far, about a million of them have been given out and Digital Converge says it will get them into the hands of 10 million consumers by year’s end. By the end of 2001, they say 50 million will be out there.
The Belo Corp. reportedly has invested $40 million into the CueCat concept and has, say critics, shamelessly been promoting the advertising tool as something Net users actually want and need.
Belo’s WFAA in Dallas ran three segments on the CueCat last week.
The Dallas Observer newspaper criticized the station’s heavy-duty CueCat promo-ad-stories and called WFAA a “whore dog.”
Of course, the Observer’s rival Dallas Morning News is also owned by Belo and also is pushing the CueCat — so you need to take the Observer’s criticism with a bit of salt.
But the Observer is hardly the only CueCat critic.
Scott Rosenberg, managing editor of the online magazine Salon, describes it, in typical Salon overstatement, as “an improbable creation that accomplishes nothing but that’s absurd in its complexity.”
WHAT MOST AMAZES ME is that supposedly sophisticated executives of these big media companies thought their readers and viewers would actually use these things, which are balky to install and cumbersome to use. Nor, apparently, did they see a conflict between news and advertising as they devoted newspaper copy and television news show mentions to the CueCat.
But my biggest gripe is the product itself. It’s simply impractical. Really now, how many of us want to be forced to read magazines an arm’s length from our PC?
And what’s so hard about typing in a website address if we’re really that interested in getting more information?
Truly, I see absolutely no compelling need for this device. But its questionable usefulness has been compounded by a colossal security breach.
See, before this thing works, you first have to register with the CueCat people. Guess what? About 140,000 people who signed up recently had their e-mail addresses exposed through a security flaw that leaves them vulnerable to be bombarded with unsolicited e-mail, or Spam. The company apologized profusely and said it plugged the security hole, but privacy advocates have their doubts. The Privacy Foundation, a Denver-based outfit dedicated to online privacy, offers this warning on its website:
“CueCat scans every consumer who registers for the service. The registration requires a user’s name, email address, and zip code; and requests answers to a list of questions about the user’s buying habits, hobbies, and Internet use.”
What’s wrong with that?
While CueCat and its media partners may think that’s just great, the Privacy Foundation notes “this feature could potentially allow the company to track the CueCat scans of every consumer who registers for the service.”
It is calling for the company to disable the tracking feature.
I don’t think that will be necessary.
Once people see how useless this thing is, they’ll disconnect the CueCat and toss it away.
But maybe I’m wrong. Any Cuecat users out there who’d like to set me straight?
