Holding Out For a Barcode Hero

Barcode Hero has deemed itself a “social barcode scanner.” You login with your Facebook account and start scanning. You scan barcodes on the things you have, want or are buying. As you scan, you rack up points in certain categories, reaching a certain number of points in a category earns you the title Duke, Duchess, King or Queen in that category (much like the viral GPS game Foursquare, where you can become Mayor of locations you frequent). Currently, these accolades are their own reward, but Kima Labs predicts sponsorships, promotions and offers to be the future of Barcode Hero.

The only admissible criticism of the app relates to Barcode Hero's use of your Facebook account. However, Kima Labs assures users that they hate Facebook spammers as much as you do and will never post anything to your wall, contact your Facebook friends, or post anything to your wall without your permission. Other criticism relates only to the app's relevance and that remains a matter of subjectivity.

The overnight success of the Barcode Hero app represents overwhelming societal and cultural implications relating to consumerism and connectivity, but the most important question relates to an immutable concept: fun. Is it fun? Heck yeah, it is.

Download Barcode Hero for the iPhone now on iTunes or get on the list for the Android version.{jcomments on}