Barcode Kanojo is a free iPhone Application with virtual social dating community service by Cybird, Japan-based mobile contents company.
We reported the news title (only) in early August, but it seems to take time to be approved by Apple.
You may download the application, scan any 1D barcode around you, then you will get one virtual girlfriend generated out of 7 trillion variations.
Those virtual anime girls will have appearance by at where the barcode is scanned – longitude and latitude – and in which country – country code in the barcode -. (ITMedia [J]) For example, the girl’s hair tends to be black if you scan in Asia or scan Asian products.
You may make a communication with the generated virtual girls by touch. See a demo movie,
By scanning the same barcode(=product), your current virtual date will be a friend of the other’s.
The app/service are provided all in English, available on several different country’s iTunes AppStore.
The site shows that there are over 24,000 girls generated today. As some people already pointed out on the web, the game vendor will get a lot of information what products the user has around him/her, with location info. If that is the source of monetization they think, it is not strange that the app is free.
In Japan, there was a big boom of Barcode Battler in early 1990’s, when all kids were into scanning barcodes and let them fight virtually. So a game scanning barcode may still have some charm for grown Japanese boys. And it has Moe, too.
But that Barcode Battler’s export was not so successful. The massive boom was only in Japan. How will this Cybird’s all-in-English challenge go?
