While other tech giants, including Amazon and Google, are launching mobile devices, eBay has stayed on the sidelines, preferring instead to develop applications that can be used on other companies’ devices. And as we noted yesterday, it’s turning rivals into “fremenies.”
First this week eBay had nice things to say about Amazon’s Fire smartphone – link, and on Wednesday, eBay revealed it was developing for Google Glass, which brings computing to eyeglasses (nerds, rejoice!).
In a post its website, eBay said its next frontier could be bringing commerce to wearable devices and announced it was releasing RedLaser for Glass, “which puts the most popular barcode scanning technology on Google Glass devices.”
eBay explained, “With RedLaser for Glass, users can perform price comparisons for products on the fly, without needing to take out a smartphone or other device, and more.”
It also shared thoughts from the head of eBay Innovation and New Venture Steve Yankovich, who said, “Soon you’ll be able to do things like pull up to a gas pump and because you’ve got a PayPal app or vehicle of some kind on you, pump six will be automatically enabled. You don’t have to do anything, and you may be carrying any one of a number of devices.”
He also said the main reason eBay was pursuing putting apps on wearable devices is because it wants to understand how the new tools engage consumers.
“We want to understand the commerce hook. You have to stay on top of emerging technologies in order to understand them.”
