Barcodes and the UPC have helped us identify products in the physical world for four decades. How can the same system of identification for products be leveraged to provide identity in the digital world?

1. Product ID in a Digital World
Ken Sickles, February 2013

2. ® 1W orldSync 2013
The Digital World Today
Is a connected
system (web) of
linked documents
HTML
HTML
HTML
HTML
HTML
HTML
HTML

3. ® 1W orldSync 2013
The Digital World Today
These documents
have meaning to
humans…
Samsung
TV!

4. ® 1W orldSync 2013
The Digital World Today
These documents
have meaning to
humans, and
must be explicitly
linked to related
documents
This is
about that
Samsung
TV too!

5. ® 1W orldSync 2013
The Digital World Today
But to
computers, they
have little to no
explicit meaning.
What is
this
about?

6. ® 1W orldSync 2013
The Digital World Today
And unless done
by a human,
computers can’t
find other
documents that
are about the
same thing.
Are these
related?

7. ® 1W orldSync 2013
The Digital World Today
That is why
Google was born.
To tell computers
what pages were
about, and the
relationships
between them.
Pretty sure
these are
about
Samsung TV
Complicated
code &
algorithms
Thanks, I’ll tell
the human.

8. ® 1W orldSync 2013
But a new way for computers to
identify things in the digital world is
emerging…
8

9. ® 1W orldSync 2013
The Emerging Digital World
Computers can
find related pages
without explicit
declaration from a
human (or guess
from Google).
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{HTML
…
Person ID:
https://linkedin.com/kensickles
…
/HTML}
Both are
about Ken
Sickles!
{HTML
…
Person ID:
https://linkedin.com/kensickles
…
/HTML}

10. ® 1W orldSync 2013
The Emerging Digital World
This simple URI
code is the
Identification
Authority in the
digital world for
People (Ken
Sickles).
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Person ID: https://linkedin.com/kensickles

11. ® 1W orldSync 2013
The Emerging Digital World
The computer
readable code
behind the URI
also tells
computers related
information.
11
Person ID: https://linkedin.com/kensickles
Name: “Ken Sickles“
Current Employer: “1WorldSync“
Previous Employer: “Dow Jones“
Funny: True

12. ® 1W orldSync 2013
The Emerging Digital World
Imagine if the
same thing
existed for
products?
12
{HTML
…
Product ID:
https://gtin.com/00794043444623
…
/HTML}
Both are
about
Samsung
TV!
{HTML
…
Product ID:
https://gtin.com/00794043444623
…
/HTML}

13. ® 1W orldSync 2013
The Emerging Digital World
This simple URI
code is the
Identification
Authority in the
digital world for
Products
(Samsung TV).
13
Product ID: https://gtin.com/00794043444623

14. ® 1W orldSync 2013
The Emerging Digital World
The computer
readable code
behind the URI
also tells
computers related
information.
14
Product ID: https://gtin.com/00794043444623
GTIN: 00794043444623
brand: “Samsung",
website: http://www.facebook.com/Samsung,
Company Prefix: 0123
GPC: ”television",
type: “plasma”,
classification: “hi definition”,
Variant: http://gtin.com/00012343232112
Variant: http://gtin.com/00012343232113
Variant: http://gtin.com/00012343232114

15. ® 1W orldSync 2013
How Do We Make This Work
First we create a
big database with
all of the product
identification
information, and
publish the URI
for every GTIN
15
Product ID: https://gtin.com/00794043444623

16. ® 1W orldSync 2013
How Do We Make This Work
Then we convince
page owners to
embed the
associated URI in
their web pages
16
{HTML
…
Product ID:
https://gtin.com/00794043444623
…
/HTML}
{HTML
…
Product ID:
https://gtin.com/00794043444623
…
/HTML}

17. ® 1W orldSync 2013
How Do We Make This Work
When a computer
(search
engine, social
media site, etc.)
find this
code, they know
exactly the
product/category
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Product ID: https://gtin.com/00794043444623
GTIN: 00794043444623
brand: “Samsung",
website: http://www.facebook.com/Samsung,
Company Prefix: 0123
GPC: ”television",
type: “plasma”,
classification: “hi definition”,
Variant: http://gtin.com/00012343232112
Variant: http://gtin.com/00012343232113
Variant: http://gtin.com/00012343232114

18. ® 1W orldSync 2013
How Do We Make This Work
When a barcode
is scanned mobile
app providers can
just add the
“http://…” in front
of the UPC code
to get Product ID
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Product ID: https://gtin.com/00794043444623
GTIN: 00794043444623
brand: “Samsung",
website: http://www.facebook.com/Samsung,
Company Prefix: 0123
GPC: ”television",
type: “plasma”,
classification: “hi definition”,
Variant: http://gtin.com/00012343232112
Variant: http://gtin.com/00012343232113
Variant: http://gtin.com/00012343232114

19. ® 1W orldSync 2013
How This Looks
19
Product
Graph
https://graph.gtin.co
m/0079404344462
3
Brand Owner UI
Digital GTIN
URI (and
computer
readable
code)

20. ® 1W orldSync 2013
Industry Support
 The major search engines already support this
(schema.org)
 ALL brand owners and ALL e-commerce providers already
put this type of code in their web pages (Facebook,
Google+, Twitter, etc.)
 Very easy for mobile app developers to use
 Aligned with technology industry direction (see Tim
Burners Lee TED talk)
 It can use the symbology (UPC/EAN) that already exists
in the physical world
 We can start with*existing* Data in GDSN/Data Driver
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21. ® 1W orldSync 2013
Benefits
 Reduce “digital out of stocks”
 Visibility of product for brands, e-commerce
sites, social media providers, mobile apps
 Improved SEO for all
 Support product variations, and frequent
changes, without disrupting existing GTIN allocation
processes
 Improved consumer search (product
discovery/categorization)
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