Waiting an huge penetration of NFC phones, at least in advertising fields, the NFC Smart Poster could be easily substituted by QR Code.
A QR Sample follows, it could be easily attached on brochure, posters and can carry a lot of informations, the reader could read the content and decide to present info at the user and download or send some other info at the backend for processing.
Buying a ticket for differnt metro zones could be more easy for instance.
A QR Code is a matrix code (or two-dimensional bar code) created by Japanese corporation Denso-Wave in 1994. The “QR” is derived from “Quick Response”, as the creator intended the code to allow its contents to be decoded at high speed.
QR Codes are becoming, specially in far east, more common than the most popular type of two dimensional code. It can contains:
Numeric only: Max. 7,089 characters;
Alphanumeric: Max. 4,296 characters;
Binary (8 bits): Max. 2,953 bytes;
Kanji/Kana: Max. 1,817 characters.
QR Code could be easily used for a lot of applications, such as:
- linking print articles to RSS feeds and blogs
- delivering product or tourist information
- linking “lost pet” flyers to contact forms
- dating – use your imagination on that one
- “find me” maps
- promoting an event or concert on flyers/postcards
- connecting geocachers to mobile logbooks
- creating museum exhibits and street tours
- building scavenger hunts or “collect-them-all” games
- downloading ringtones, music, wallpapers or video (think indie artists)
- ticket sales for clubs
- directing people to your mobile site and/or storefront
- enabling mobile sales from catalogs or flyers
- distributing coupons
- conference badges connected to profiles
- business cards connected to company sites
- signing up to text alert services
- running competitions
- connecting mix tapes to podcasts or vidcasts
- connecting posters to podcasts or vidcasts
- enabling community interaction at public locations
This is a funny usage …
Much like other mobile technology, such as SMS, it typically takes a while for the market to embrace new mobile technology, but once it does we quickly match the usage seen in other parts of the world. I believe that will happen with bar codes as well. Already I see the signs…
Reader
Some years ago there was few mobile phones with an enbedded camera and the computing power on hadset was very poor;due this second aspect, application included at the end an MMS sending, followed by action taken in the backend after the QR recognition.
Nowdays computing power on phones and handheld in general is enough so there are a lot of readers available , one free is available for download from Kaywa web site, I suggest this one to youthis since it doesn’t initiate any Web, Text or call session in an unsolicited way.
Survey
A survey originally taken by InfoPlaint that was carried out at the end of August 2005. The respondents selected the survey themselves via a link in the DoCoMo iMode menu system. 7,660 people completed the survey; 5,023 of them were women.
Q: Do you know about QR codes (2D barcodes)?
- I’ve used them 73.3%
- I know about them, and have a reader feature in my phone, but I haven’t used them 7.6%
- I know about them, but don’t have a reader feature in my phone, so I haven’t used them 15.6%
I don’t know about them 3.5%
Looking at the age breakdown, for both males and females almost 90% of the under 20’s use them, but the rate steadily drops down to end up at just about half of all the over 50s.
Q: For those who answered that they used them, in what printed materials have you used QR Codes? (Sample size=5,513)
- Business card 5.7%
- Newspaper 31.9%
- Magazine 84.2%
- Advertising flyer 51.1%
- Poster 14.2%
- Direct mail 25.0%
- Mail-order catalog 24.8%
- PC web site 20.7%
- Other 13.1%
There was no significant differences between the sexes, except for almost two and a half times more women used mail-order catalog QR Codes.
Q: Which of the following QR Code-based services do you want to use? (Sample size=7,660)
- Easy phone book registration from a business card, etc 36.8%
- Read a URL and access a site 74.3%
- Replacement for company identification badge 29.0%
- Cashless shopping at vending machines, etc 28.3%
- Buying goods written about in magazines 27.7%
- Replacement for tickets (concerts, travel passes, etc) 32.5%
- Others 5.5%
- Don’t want to use 7.4%