Voir QR: the unanswered QR code questions.

There were a few audience Q’s at Voir QR for which I didn’t have sufficient A’s. Here’s what I could dig up with a little research.

Q: Can a QR code return a plain text message that also includes a link?

Goal: deliver a tailored message to the user before they head for your website.

A: Hell yes, the code can, but the roadblock occurs at people’s readers. I tested a text/url combo code on 4 different readers: Neoreader, i-nigma, ATTScanner & RedLaser, and the results were various to say the least.

Neoreader returned the desired result: a message plus the ability to visit the link included in the message. i-nigma skipped the msg entirely and just showed the user the link. ATTScanner showed both the msg and the link, but the link was unclickable. Redlaser gave you both; a msg and a clearly clickable old-skool blue underlined link.

Takeaway: don’t do this. It won’t work for everybody. It’s a cheap solution for setting up a specific mobile landing page for the code & won’t work at least half the time.

Q: Are Microsoft Tags being used in Canada?

Context: 2 MS employees in the audience had: never seen Tag info cross their desks and only seen it in the MS Surface specs, respectively. We’re not sure, but we suspect Tag isn’t being widely promoted in Canada.

A: Still not sure. Googling returns one MS blog excited that Tag appeared in Ontario in 2009 & sites with linkbait names like “find a toilet”, so it doesn’t look good.  I’ve posted the question to the Tag Facebook page, but the community manager is woefully disinterested in answering questions, so don’t hold your breath.

Q: Can you launch Foursquare with a QR code?

A: First of all, turns out there’s a few real benefits to checking in with QR as opposed to using Foursquare’s own app. By scanning a code instead (say, on a poster), you:

• Are definitely really in that location
• Avoid scrolling through several venues at the same spot
• Circumvent crappy GPS signals that are unable to pinpoint your location
• Get the right location, not the user-created duplicates

There’s a generator specifically for Foursquare checkins, and this tweet came my way:

Bonus A: I also wanted to throw in this list of QR code generators—the first 1 listed is the example I gave that could do a lot of stuff, & the second one is Sparqcode.

Is location awareness too creepy to catch on?

Photo by jefield | Flickr Creative Commons | CC BY 2.0

I know, I know, I’m an enigma wrapped in a riddle. On the one hand I love social networking, work in social media marketing, and check in with Foursquare. On the other, I’m righteously indignant that Facebook insists on publishing my fan pages and friends list to make a buck. I think geolocation is so cool, but I’m worried that we’re cutting down the privacy forest faster than the hairy-legged tree planters of social convention can reseed it. If there’s no trees, we’ll all be able to see each other going to the bathroom.

Wired experimented with it, arming one poor writer with an armada of GPS-enabled tech & watching his psychological breakdown. Mashable terrified us with it, making us consider the looming specter of personal injury & property loss. Location sharing is the big cool thing for 2010. But is location awareness just TMI for the careful constrains of society as we know it?

It’s weird on a fundamental level to think that one day soon you might be found, contacted, hassled, marketed to, located at any time. People like time off. People need to pull the covers over their head at some point during the day and say “enough”. Blackberries, cell phones, the ominous eye of the Google Streetview car, all intrude on our personal domain and connect us, however inconveniently at times, to other people.

It’s not just that people know what movies you like and what pages you’re a fan of. The new location-aware web will let them know where you literally are. How to get to you at all times.

This is more than a breach of a general sense of decorous privacy. This is an encroachment into our most personal resource, our time. Our attention, our thoughts, are diverted, captured, required by others. A rising sense of panic accompanies the sensation you might never be alone again. Read the rest of this entry »