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QR Codes
Scan the code with your phone!
When I was in Milan recently a colleague showed me a small piece of laminated paper that he carried around in his wallet. On this bit of paper was an image about the size of a stamp that was made up from a random looking pattern of black and white shapes. He explained to me that I was looking at a QR code that contained his contact details on. I was slightly impressed, but asked the obvious question, why would you need that? It was then further explained to me that certain smart phones using specific software and the integrated camera could read the information and display it/save it to the phone. Now I could start to see the possibilities. It is very easy to create your own code at sites such as kaywa.com, you save the image and can either print it out, or place it somewhere. With more and more people using an iPhone or an Android phone, which can both read these QR codes, I have actually created a code containing my contact details and have added this to my email signature. Looks VERY geeky, but useful if people want to quickly add my mobile number to their phone contact list.
QR on a Pepsi bottle
It’s possibly a case that now I know about these QR codes I’m looking out for them more, but I’m sure that I’m starting to see there use more and more. Whilst buying a large bottle of Pepsi recently, I saw a QR code on the wrapping. I therefore scanned it into my phone which revealed a single embedded URL. I clicked on the URL and was taken to a specific promo site on my mobile which had further links to videos, competitions and further info. Pretty cool. These QR codes are very popular already in Japan, where mobile technology has always been ahead of what we have in Europe. I’m pretty convinced that we are going to see their use over here increase a lot over the next 6 months. I’ve already had a number of people ask what that ‘odd looking image’ is at the bottom of my signature, and today I see a colleague in Spain has followed suit and has his own QR code in his email signature. If you read my last post about tracking offline visits to a website, you might already be thinking how a tracking redirect code could be embedded into the QR code, giving you some insight into how many people are scanning these codes and also tracking for sales conversions. This sounds like pretty powerful stuff to me so expect to start seeing this codes more and more. In fact, why not creating one of your own?
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