There’s some excitement about QR codes. I share it.
QR codes, combined with camera phones everywhere and apps that read the codes, are a chance to bring hypertext offline.
Hypertext is the internet’s most wonderful property. Now we can extend its reach into RL (real life).
But when is a QR code actually appropriate?
For example, when we want to give our website’s address. On business cards or printed ads. Usually only the site’s domain is given there, not a specific page. And here, domains are still fairly short. Should I, for example, put a QR code linking to the online store Alisa anywhere, when its address is alisa.in.ua?
What’s simpler? Launch a decoder app on the phone, point the camera, wait for it to focus, get the address and finally open it in the browser? Or type 11 characters into the address bar?
Admittedly, for now you have to allow for the novelty effect of this technology: those “in the know” will be glad to use a new thing and show themselves how advanced they are :)
Still, I think it makes more sense to QR-encode long links that take a while to type on a keyboard. Those are either links to specific products in an online store, or to articles on some subject (where the friendly URL is built from the article’s headline and so gets long too).
Companies can also put special coded links on their ads (flyers) that let users, say, collect bonuses on a personal account: there’s your integration of an offline and an online ad campaign. Got a flyer? Scan the code, get a discount in the online store!
You can run QR quests, where players have to collect QR codes hidden in various places, each giving hints for what to do next.
The same guys who built http://www.paywithatweet.com/, which I recently wrote about in “The price of your social network: an idea for online stores”, have found another use for QR technology.
http://www.hitorshit.org/en/: you create a “thumb”, a sign shaped like a fist with the thumb raised, and stick it on some object offline. The sign carries a code that lets you, by entering the link on your phone, vote on whether you like the object or not.
A bit complicated, right? But unusual.
Or you can put a QR code with your blog’s address on a T-shirt and finally get around to promoting it! :) For example, friends gave Kostya, aka ostrozub, a T-shirt like that for his birthday.
A great use of QR codes, I think, is replacing links (footnotes) in paper books. Instead of referring to an entry number in the bibliography (which is at the end of the book, often split by chapter, so good luck finding it), you can simply put an encoded hyperlink in the margin.
For example, something like this:
(Image lost: a book page with a QR code in the margin.)
By the way, for hybrid media (a newspaper plus a news site), it makes sense to print links to the article online or to a related video.
On the internet, QR codes make sense when you need to move something to a phone. A link to an app, for example, or contact details encoded for the phone book.
Here are my contacts, by the way:
(Image lost: a QR code with my contact details.)
Call, write :)
You can run the links through any URL shortener, for example the cool b23.ru. Or the Western bit.ly, which more people know.
This method has one downside, though: if a user scans your code and sees an obscure shortened link leading who knows where, he may fear a) viruses, b) heavy mobile data use or, more often, simply c) the unknown.
In conclusion I’d like to say hi to my mom and report that for some reason I usually type words starting with “pr” as “rp”.
QR codes are an interesting technology for ad campaigns, especially if your target audience is already armed with smartphones (geeky youth of some kind), and they can substantially improve the usability of print media, becoming their bridge to online.
P.S. Topic inspired by “20 ways to use QR codes” on http://www.lookatme.ru
P.P.S. By the way, on whether to put a QR code with the alisa.in.ua address on business cards: please answer in the comments, if by any chance anyone reads this ;)