“Quick response” codes or “QR codes” as they are more commonly known, are little bar-codes which can be read and scanned by your smartphone. The codes can be stored with no typing required. URLs are the most commonly scanned QR codes and the typical message is to visit a website or to see something. The advertising applications abound both on and off the web, but the ultimate destination is a website.
You may not even be aware but these little bar-codes are popping up everywhere including on convention name tags, flyers, postcards, business cards, t-shirts, and stickers. The uses are seemingly endless with advertising as the mainstream marketing application (maybe that should read as “call to action).
For example, advertisers are embedding the codes in print ads for readers to scan and then visit their websites. Other applications include airline boarding passes and buying stuff on online.
All you need to get started is a smart phone with a camera. You can install an app after a quick Google search for a “QR Reader” and they’re available for the iPhone, Windows Mobile, Nokia, BlackBerry, or Android. This technology is called interactive mobile, 2D codes and a dozen other things.
While this may seem the domain of the mobile geeks, it is quickly becoming commonplace. For more info here is an interesting post from Memeburn.
John Bradley Jackson
Deja New Marketing
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