QR codes are everywhere in New York: on posters, products and advertisements. Plus in newspapers. The photo shows the use of QR codes by USA Today to add value to the reader experience. Not only do they have QR codes for each section of the newspaper, when they have additional content for a story you can link to this via the QR code. Clever.
For those not sure what a QR code is, click here for the Wikipedia entry.
We saw a burst of QR code activity in Australia and since then use of the technology has faded … not sure why.
It would be interesting to see the stats on their effectiveness. Most of the QR code evangelists get very cagey when they are asked to show how effective these campaigns are (a bit like social media experts).
The Brooklyn Museum had a recent post on how they found the effectiveness of QR codes and the results weren’t impressive.
https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/community/blogosphere/2012/01/04/qr-in-the-new-year/
Personally, I cite QR codes as a classic technical solution in search of a problem.
Maybe over time those pushing these things will find a real life problem to solve and QR codes will become part of our lives like barcodes, but it’s difficult to what use they are right now.
What’s interesting Paul is that in USA Today half the QR codes are telco sponsored. Also, the number I have seen suggests that there must be some traction otherwise why do it?
I dunno Mark, there’s a huge push in the tech and marketing media to talk up QR codes.
Being a cynical old trog, my thinking is it’s the the current shiny thing of the ADHD challenged advertising industry.
Advertising types have ADHD?
I agree re the engagement with QR codes. I think that they could be more useful than they are being used at the moment.
QR codes are found all over Japan.
I find them convenient to share messages and links to other sites on mobile devices, and are used in a number of fun applications.