From WIKI:
The CueCat was invented by J. Jovan Philyaw, who changed his name to J. Hutton Pulitzer.[3][4] Belo Corporation, then parent company of the Dallas Morning News and owner of many TV stations, invested US$37.5 million in Digital Convergence, Radio Shack $30 million, Young & Rubicam $28 million and Coca-Cola $10 million.[5] The total amount invested was $185 million.[6]
Starting in late 2000 and continuing for over a year, advertisements, special web editions and editorial content containing CueCat barcodes appeared in many U.S. periodicals, including Parade magazine, Forbes magazine and Wired magazine. The Dallas Morning News and other Belo-owned newspapers added the barcodes next to major articles and regular features like stocks and weather. Commercial publications such as AdWeek, BrandWeek and MediaWeek also employed the technology. The CueCat bar codes also appeared in select Verizon Yellow Pages, providing advertisers a link to additional information. For a time, RadioShack included these barcodes in its product catalogs and distributed CueCat devices through its retail chain to customers at no charge. CueCats were also bulk mailed (unsolicited) to certain mailing lists, such as subscribers of Forbes and Wired magazines.
In the Wall Street Journal, Walter Mossberg criticized CueCat: "In order to scan in codes from magazines and newspapers, you have to be reading them in front of your PC. That's unnatural and ridiculous." Mossberg wrote that the device "fails miserably. Using it is just unnatural." He concluded that the CueCat "isn't worth installing and using, even though it's available free of charge".[7] Joel Spolsky, a computer technology reviewer, also criticized the device as "not solving a problem" and characterized the venture as a "feeble business idea".[8]
The data format was proprietary, and was scrambled so the barcode data could not be read as plain text. However, the barcode itself is closely related to Code 128, and the scanner was also capable of reading EAN/UPC and other symbologies. Because of the weak obfuscation of the data, meant only to protect the company under DMCA guidelines (like the DVD protection Content Scramble System), the software for decoding the CueCat's output quickly appeared on the Internet, followed by a plethora of unofficial applications
The CueCat is widely described as a commercial failure. It was listed as one of "The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time" by PC World magazine.[10] The CueCat's critics said the device was ultimately of little use: Jeff Salkowski of the Chicago Tribune wrote "You have to wonder about a business plan based on the notion that people want to interact with a soda can," while Debbie Barham of the Evening Standard quipped that the CueCat "fails to solve a problem which never existed."[11] In December 2009, the popular gadget blog Gizmodo voted the CueCat the #1 worst invention of the "2000s" decade.[12] A CBS News piece describing RadioShack's 2015 Chapter 11 bankruptcy lists the CueCat as just one of a long string of marketing failures[13] which contributed to the chain's demise.[14]
