Do More Last-Minute Holiday Shopping with Voice

Buy.com today launched a new voice-enabled shopping application for Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch mobile devices.

The app features barcode technology and a voice recognition platform from MeMeMe, which is built to improve over time, adjusting to the specific voice characteristics of the user. Jeff Wisot, vice president of marketing at Buy.com says the application's adaptive qualities will help improve its usability even beyond the usual considerations for speech recognition. "We are building to take voice beyond just adjusting to regional or ESL accents," he says. "We're working to adapt our voice offering to the individual speaker.”

Overall, this app works much like other apps on the market: shoppers can scan barcodes or use a voice search to bring product information up on their device from Buy.com. Shoppers can purchase nearly 9 million products from third-party retailers via the Buy.com marketplace and view reviews and videos on product pages. Users can also access Buy.com’s other features, which include top sellers, deals of the day, weekly specials, and "What’s Shakin’ lists.

“Buy.com is one of the largest U.S. online retailers of its kind to offer this type of feature-rich mobile app,” Wisot asserts. “By combining voice recognition with barcode scanning, along with robust product searches and checkout functionality, we’re making things a lot easier and faster for on-the-go shoppers.”

Buy.com states that even though the app is still in a beta introduction for the holiday season, downloads have already reached nearly 20,000.

"By making it simpler and faster to shop on the go, consumers can take advantage of our deals from anywhere—and make better decisions, even when standing in the aisle of a brick-and-mortar store," said Neel Grover, CEO and president of Buy.com, in a statement.