Hardfacts on Software – The Web wide store

Every now and again a new concept comes along that shakes things up a little – or a lot! I keep saying this quite often lately. Well, Kiosked is one such concept:
I just learned about Kiosked yesterday, and I must say I am very excited about it.
Here is what http://www.goodnewsfinland.com has to say about Kiosked:
“Finnish start-up Kiosked is hoping to revolutionise the world of Web advertising by letting online publishers, bloggers and photographers post images which are embedded with advertisements for related products and services.
The company has officially opened its Kiosked Image Bank which contains millions of images and photos which are legal and free to use.
Each image is embedded with relevant ads, allowing people to make purchases without having to search separately for a product.
If a tagged photo leads to a sale, the content provider, copyright owner and Kiosked all get a cut.
— Kiosked turns any online content into a marketplace, says founder and CEO Micke Pagvalén. People get shopping impulses from online content, for example, when they see a good looking lamp, golf glove or t-shirt on a blog’s image.
— Until now there has been no easy way of buying or getting information about the products they see without having to separately search for them.
— Kiosked provides consumers with instant access to more information, along with the possibility to make an on or offline purchase.
Pagvalén hopes that the technology will eventually eliminate the need for annoying advertising banners.
In addition, Kiosked will provide bloggers with a huge database of photos and images which are free of legal hassles.
Pagvalén says that around 85 per cent of images available to bloggers today violate copy right laws.
Kiosked has a growing archive of five million photos – representing almost 10,000 brands – and is adding 50,000 new images and products every day.
Pagvalén told Reuters news agency that adding photos to an archive which is accessible to anyone can increase revenue per picture by 20 to 50 times.”
Sounds very technical – so how does this work? Imagine you see a picture of a sport event on the news site you visit in the morning. You like the shoes of the soccer player! You want to buy them. Where to? Normally, no idea, since you don’t know the name or brand (unless you can see the logo) of the shoe. So your’e stuck.
Enter Kiosked. If the image has been kiosked, then information about the shoe has been embedded into the picture. You can click on the picture and a little blue icon appears on the shoe and other items one might want to buy. Click on the icon and the information about the shoe shows up. Click the “Get This” button and Kiosked takes you to the store relevant to you, in your location and with pricing in your currency. Clever. And this works for video too! So truly the web turns into one huge store! Who would have imagined?
Now when you buy something through this process, Kiosked tracks the transaction and is paid a commission for this sale by the merchant. The news site also gets a small cut. So it’s a win-win for all.
Needless to say that investors have poured millions into the company and it is growing at a phenomenal rate. It’s coming to Southern Africa soon. I can’t wait. I can’t wait to click that blue icon on the latest VW Touareg when watching Wegbreek on my iPad! Hmm – then again perhaps I will just settle for a Jerry Can or Wolfpack… that will depend on the prices of course!
Have a look at www.kiosked.com to see it in action. And one tends to think that there would be no such disrupting ideas anymore – dead wrong!
Enjoy the shopping!