Tikitag opens worldwide store, RFID for the masses?
Written on 30th September 2008
19 COMMENTS 
Robin Wauters, Next web enthusiast & Plugg organizer
Belgium based tikitag, a subsidiary of Alcatel-Lucent, is moving full force to get RFID technology opened up to a mass audience, boasting a low price point, easy-to-use technology and a developer platform. After opening up their e-store for US customers last week, international customers now have the opportunity to purchase a reader + 10 RFID tags too.
The price in EUR is 34,95 for the starter package, and you can buy additional tags per 25 for 19,95 EUR.
(Also check out Violet / Ztampz, who is doing something similar)
I’m about to receive one in the mail, courtesy of the guys at tikitag, and I can’t wait to start playing with that stuff. I honestly think the ‘internet of things’, or linking everyday objects to the net is the future of the web, although it may not come as rapidly as some might hope.
How about you? Are you a RFID believer or rather sceptic?
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By Ernst-Jan Pfauth on Sep 30, 2008
Mediamatic supplied every Picnic attendee with a RFID tag, which was quite fun. You could take pictures everywhere, have a running contest, check who had the highest google ranking. Stuff like that, see: http://www.mediamatic.net/page/25258/en
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By Wieske on Sep 30, 2008
Definitely can’t wait to see those tags showing up somewhere! I was thinking about getting a package of tikitags myself. I think that there are all kinds of fun things to do with it, although I haven’t figured out yet what exactly. The biggest obstacle right now is that not everyone (ok, practically nobody) has an RFID-reader. Maybe when that will be implemented in mobile phones and computers it will open up a whole new range of possibilities for a larger crowd.
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I don’t think anybody knows what the killer-app for RFID could be. The applications you see now are ‘funny’ but rarely really useful. Most things you can do with an RFID tag you could do just as well with a barcode. Same goes for Shotcodes.
If I tag my umbrella with an RFID chip so I can hold it up to my computer to get the weather report people get all excited. If I do the same with a barcode scanner suddenly it seems less exciting. Of course, just pressing F4 on a Mac gets you Dashboard with a detailed Weather report. No need to get my umbrella for that…
I’m not saying RFID sucks, just that I haven’t seen any good reason to really start using it…
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By Luca F. on Sep 30, 2008
have been a RFID “believer” for years…
I think this rocks…
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Ok, then please tell us what you want to use it for? How will it improve your life?
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sorry, I replied by by adding another comment… see in the comments my answer…
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By PanMan on Sep 30, 2008
I got one of the tikitag readers at picnic. And while the promise of RFID is really nice, it needs an ecosystem of a lot of tagged items. Opening webpages with tags only is fun for a short while. The environment at picnic, where everybody had a tag linked to their profile was really nice. Now if somebody could ship a tag to all facebook users…
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By Luca F. on Oct 1, 2008
the business card application one is excellent example:
there’s currently a market for business cards scanners (e.g. http://www.cardscan.com).
an RFID stiked to a business card might easily and more efficiently substitute that…
Other things: asset management.
You could easily build some application to keep track of assets. In our company there are sticker attached to each cabinet, to each desk, to each PC… you name it…
potential is huge in my view…
if you want we can have a chat :-)
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By Wieske on Oct 1, 2008
I think that compared to a barcode, reading RFID tags will be a lot easier, especially if every phone and computer can read the tags. It can al go automatically, instead of a barcode, where you need a special laser to read it.
So suppose you put RFID tags in every product, when there is a problem you read the tag with your phone and it directly dials the helpdesk.
All right, let me think of other ideas… :-)
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agree 100%, if you have ever had to deal with bar codes you know the pain…
I had the same idea about the RFID for on each product…
no more: “please type in the serial number of your device”
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By Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten on Oct 1, 2008
Keep those ideas coming! If we get enough we can publish a post titled “10 great RFID ideas”… ;-)
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start a contest with a proper prize and I am up for it ;-)
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Credit? Linklove? Eternal fame? Money? Cash? Diamonds? Gold?
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All of the above :-)
I was just joking…
there are already quite some ideas on the tikitag.com site…
http://www.tikitag.com/ideas
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By Wieske on Oct 1, 2008
One last, small idea:
Put a tag in magazines (I know it’s old paper media) and if you read the tag it will send you to the website of the magazine, or the advertisers websites, and they can give you special discounts or something like that.
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excellent one… no more stupid paper coupons!
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Barcode or Shotcode would be smarter for that. RFID has 30cm reach or something like that? Adding a tag to each article would give you too many signals…
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By Geert on Oct 1, 2008
On the website of Tikitag you will find that the reach is only 4 (!) cm
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@Geert: cool but most of my magazines are less than 2 cm thick… ;-)
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