Provider of book price-lookups goes under

For better or worse, cellphone price-lookup services have revolutionized book scouting in just a few short years. These services let you see a book's current price on Marketplace by entering the ISBN into your cellphone or wireless PDA handheld computer. With a little barcode scanner, you can even avoid the drudgery of typing the ISBNs.

No more guesswork, a book is a buy, or a no-buy.

In the past six months, a new wrinkle on this was pioneered by MediaScouter, promising bookscouts better speed and stealth. With MediaScouter, you download prices into your PDA before you go scouting. Quick lookups, and no dependence on having a good wireless signal.

Unfortunately, MediaScouter is pulling the plug on its service, according to this message sent to customers Thursday evening:

From: MediaScouter Support
To: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, August 24, 2006 7:50 PM
Subject: Announcement

Dear Customers,

Due to increased competition in the area of media scouting tools, we feel that we do not have the resources to maintain competitive in the market. We intend to cease business operations on November 30, 2006.

During this time, we will continue to provide support and daily data updates. Unless you choose to cancel before then, we will cease to collect subscriptions on October 31, 2006.

We appreciate the business and customer loyalty we have received. We hope the time frame eases the transition from our product to viable alternatives.

Thank you,
Simone Maynard

Meanwhile a new competitor named neatOscan is getting some buzz. Service is $50 a month (ouch!), but get this: It will automatically list books on Amazon as you find them. (That last part sounds scary, can I think about it for a minute?)

Looks like these services are really getting popular. Word on the Net is that ScoutPal will be offering something like this soon. The downside: you need to spend at least $225 on the PDA gizmo -- unless, of course, you're so geeky that you've already got one in your pocket.