Me in the Winnipeg Free Press, talking QR codes.

Based on my work with New Media Manitoba on mobile tagging, I had the chance to be interviewed by Winnipeg Free Press intern William Burr.

John Woods shot me at Unburger—thanks Savour Winnipeg & David Pensato for the tip about this lovely, graphic, mobile-friendly (free wifi!) location.

People might think I’m a big evangelist for mobile tagging because of all the research I’ve done, but I’m well aware of the limitations & drawbacks of the technology. While my imagination is captured in a ‘Blade Runner, Internet of Things, we are all connected by an invisible force’ kind of way, in terms of marketing I’m not sure bar codes strike the right balance of effort-in to value-out on the consumer end. I told William:

I’d be cautious using QR codes in Winnipeg. They can work, but don’t build your whole campaign around it. Make it a useful bonus, if you think the audience you’re talking to has smartphones & the offer makes sense in context. Otherwise QR is just a gimmick.

We’re just in the infancy of bringing the internet and the real world together. Today we carry small computers disguised as phones, and the best ways to access metadata from objects at present are barcodes and radio frequencies. Who knows what tomorrow will bring.

NFC (near field communication) vs. mobile tagging (or, are QR codes totally dead?)

When Google announced their move away from QR codes for Google Places, I was asked if mobile tagging is dead. Yesterday’s details on Google Wallet are causing more kerfuffle, confusion & curiosity about the upcoming standard for hardlinking the mobile web to RL.

When I presented Voir QR, I spent some time on the mobile hardware technology & marketing possibilities involved in NFC (RFID). It differs from mobile tagging in many regards, and I think the two will coexist, at least for the next few years. Why?

• NFC hardware (phones & RFID-equipped merchants) is very limited
• Mobile tags are available to everybody, right now, free

Though they’ve said they’ll work with all platforms, imo Google’s foray into Walletization sure helps solidify the indispensability of Android. If iPhone isn’t there yet, Android has the chance to gain marketshare as the phone ‘that can do mobile payments’.

Mobile tags are: free/cheap, fast, low tech, flexible, printable on anything, buildable out of anything, can do a lot (even payments, if you wanna get into it).

NFC is: hardware-dependant, expensive at this point, going to be great for paying for stuff. Will eventually get used for the stuff QR is used for, except in vigilante/street art/low tech situations. Same reason we keep cash money around even though there’s Interac.

Paying for stuff by waving your phone at is certainly on the horizon, because Mastercard determined people spend around 28-42% more when mentally divorced from their actual money. I don’t know what could be a more compelling technological driver than 42% increased profits for credit card companies, so this is definitely happening.

Canadians were quick to embrace Interac, and many of us (including me, all men, and women who hate carrying men’s wallets in their purses for them) will be more than happy to ditch the bulky pocketbook & use the phone we already babysit constantly for payments.

I’m already designeing a toilet-proof iPhone case to prevent those inevitable watery wallet mishaps.

How can you use QR codes if you can’t afford a mobile site?

I often rake people over the coals for providing poor mobile experiences at the resolve of their QR code campaigns.

Jenn Halyk asked me a pretty good question: what can you do if you’re a small business & you don’t have the cashola to develop a mobile site at all, never mind campaign-specific experiences?

Here are a few sorta cheats & hacks that will still deliver a decent contextual mobile experience while costing you $0.

1. Facebook fan page

Sending someone over to ‘like’ you during the IRL moment they actually like you can mentally file you away for later (in their mind) and get your foot in the door with them (in yours).

Get ‘em while they’re pumped up about you or when they’re completely bored & have to wait for their highlights to process.

• retail checkout
• tucked into the mirror at the hair salon
• signage at an event

2. YouTube video

If you can give ‘em more, give ‘em more (by “can” I mean you check “yes” beside “I have a video that isn’t a time-vampiring commercial”).

• share your latest song on your band’s gig poster (bonus idea: direct download to an MP3 if you’re nice; to iTunes if you’re not)
• show news coverage of a disaster on nonprofit bus shelter ads

3. Contact information

You can add an iPhone contact or Blackberry vCard instantly with a QR code. Take advantage of this when someone would naturally need to contact you later.

• realtors
• government hotlines / helplines

4. Add a calendar event

QR codes can be used to add an event to a mobile calendar (seriously!). Book time in someone’s totally busy life with a quick scan.

• conferences, open houses, town hall meetings
• art opening, concerts, performances, book readings

5. Google map

It might make sense to help someone find your physical location. Launch a Google map with your code & plot their course for them.

• artfully hidden coffee shops
• historical sites, points of interest
• meetups

6. The good ‘ole JPEG

Host yourself an image, and give the user something they can save to their phone or flash at a cashier.

• discount coupons
• downloadable wallpaper

If none of these ideas suit your purposes, you might be ready for Tip #7:

7.  Don’t use QR codes

Rethink if you actually have something to deliver in context. Making people scan a code for no reason will not endear you to them. Use judiciously & come back when you have something useful to offer.

Are people using QR codes? First few months of 2011 show explosive growth in mobile tag scans.

I-nigma—a kick-ass 2D/1D barcode reader & certainly one of my top picks for QR—sent me the latest mobile tag scanning stats, and they’re pretty amazing.

First quarter (Q1) of 2011 (Jan-Mar)

• Worldwide usage grew 61.9% over Q4 2010
• The US experienced 181.1% growth in Q1 2011 over Q4 2010
• Comparing Q1 2010 and Q1 2011, US growth was 630%

Top 5 growing countries for Q1/2011

This data includes QR, datamatrix, and 1D (UPC) codes, and shows that the concept of mobile tagging is becoming normalized.

Microsoft Tag reports crazy Q1 growth too

• Q1 2011: scans per month have doubled, and users per month have more than doubled
• March 2011 had 50% more scans than any other month
• Three billion Tags printed in the past 6 months (5 billion printed since launch in Jan 2009)
• Publishing (magazines) continue to be the top industry using Tag. Retail=#2, entertainment=#3

What does it mean to be “mobile-friendly”?

I poked my nose into this Twitter question about mobile, and it got me thinking. Here, get up to speed first:

So while I’m being all literal, the inquiry is (I now think, after sleeping on it) a more philosophical one.

What does it mean to provide a mobile experience, versus delivering the internet in general to people on their phones?

I’ve evolved my criteria for a good QR code campaign to include the context of the mobile interaction. That’s why I gave Peak of the Market a passing grade even though the actual poking-the-phone-with-your-fingers experience wasn’t all the way there.

Peak was thinking “What can we give people that helps them out right now?” And that’s the soul of a good mobile happening.

This slide from Voir QR explains “context” as a vital component in a successful “out of home” experience.

The experience needs to make sense. Deliver something that can instantly be used to save the user time or otherwise delight them right at that moment, and you’ve got “mobile-friendly” down.

Why QR codes—and the entire coming mobile web—matter to you.

We’re all aware that the mobile web is coming. Moore’s law will have its usual impact on hardware, and the price of smartphones and dataplans will drop to negligibly zero, as it did with feature phones prior. Shortly, the freebie that comes with our parent’s mobile plans will be able to access a robust, roving web.

This quickly leads to a web that needs to be delivered in context, which is accomplished with GPS and hardlinking. [Hardlinking is the word for physical objects that contain digital information, or "mobile tags". Right now these tags are largely 2-dimensional barcodes. Let's call those 'QR' for simplicity's sake].

I’m sure you can appreciate the import and impact of the internet suddenly extending beyond the boundaries of your monitor. And your phone. Into the literal street beyond.

Understanding QR codes & mobile tagging isn’t about trendy marketing, it’s about the bigger picture. It’s about starting to think about the new web. A web that takes into account where and when people access it.

Want to learn more? See ya at Voir QR this Thursday.

‘So, what are QR codes?’ animated infographic for #nmmqr.

More visual noodling as I research QR codes for my upcoming talk at New Media Manitoba.

A

#QRcode animated infographic: How does mobile tagging work?

Animated gif illustrating the components of an object tagging scheme. Hardlinking with QR code to the web, data returned via wireless network to handheld device.

Critiques?