Newspapers promote QR codes, linking print and outdoor media to online, and building tighter social-mainstream media symbiosis

Ross Dawson, July 4, 2008 7:35 PM US PT

QR code for this blog

The Sydney Morning Herald has recently had big features in its Saturday edition on QR codes, the 2-dimensional bar codes that act as visual URLs for mobile phones, taking them automatically to the linked online content. QR codes are massive in Japan, appearing in magazines, billboards, business cards, shop windows, T-shirts, and more, by dint of NTT DoCoMo’s promotion of the codes. One Japanese magazine consists entirely of free things you can download with QR codes. Now Australia’s Telstra is trying to do the same thing in Australia, shipping all of its NextG phones with the necessary software, and making it freely available to anyone else.

It is very interesting to see a newspaper so actively promote a mobile technology. The Sydney Morning Herald is introduced daily QR codes on page 2 from this Monday, providing a link to the five most popular stories in the paper and other content. This means that you can engage with the media cycle even while reading a print newspaper. I wrote over two years ago about how each story on the online version of the Washington Post was showing links to blog posts about that article. Now this kind of immediate reflection of social media views is available in the print world.

So far in the US there have just been tests of QR codes in San Francisco, providing links to Citysearch reviews of local restaurants and merchants.

While there are a number of competing standards for codes that will link mobiles to online content, QR codes are substantially in the lead, and look set to become an international standard. There is a good chance these could become commonplace globally within the next 1-2 years. What is most interesting is the innovative ways they are used, particularly within mainstream media (which can include television).

Fujitsu to test kid-tracking system using QR codes

by Marc Perton, posted Aug 17th 2005 at 3:25PM

Lest you think RFID is the only technology being used in Japan to track kids, Fujitsu is testing a system that can store detailed data in QR Codes, eliminating the need for kids to wear or carry a digital device. The system works sort of like a CueCat for kids; if a child is lost, his QR Code can be read by an Internet-enabled scanner, which can automatically forward the child’s information to a specified server, which will in turn notify the parents. Unlike RFID, of course, there’s no active transmissions being sent by the child, but the QR-based system has the advantage of being cheap to implement. Of course, the same results could probably be achieved by having the child carry a wallet-sized card with his home address and phone number, or a camp-style tag sewn into a shirt. But, then, Fujitsu wouldn’t be able to sell any scanners, would they?

Advertising billboards could provide direct links to additional information, such as where to buy a particular product. Now the QR code is even being used in airports. Skycode can be applied many applications and support the business growth.

Beside allowing the access and interaction with Mobile Websites, Skycode provides some features, such as access statistics, mobile directory, Mobile Website address modified easily.

Note:

If you need more detail, please check at http://www.mobileskynet.com

Mobile Phone merupakan alat komunikasi dan juga informasi yang selalu berada di tangan pemiliknya, berbeda dengan notebook atau PC. Apa artinya? Jika seseorang yang mendapatkan alamat Internet perusahaan atau informasi tertentu, seharusnya pengguna Mobile Phone dapat mengakses informasi yang bersangkutan dengan mudah. Tetapi hasil tampilan informasinya tidak memuaskan, karena layout untuk layar Mobile Phone tentunya berbeda dengan layar PC ataupun Notebook. Sehingga perlu didisain ulang untuk keperluan tampilan di Mobile Phone. Itulah Mobile Website.

Perusahaan ataupun organisasi yang telah mengembangkan dan menerapkan sistem informasi secara baik yang dapat diakses melalui jaringan Internet, tentunya informasi tersebut dapat diakses juga melalui Mobile Phone. Dan akses informasi dan interaksi melalui Mobile Phone perlu lebih mudah dan fokus pada informasinya, Skycode dapat dijadikan sebagai sarana untuk akses informasi secara mudah dan cepat melalui kamera Mobile Phone. Skycode ini merupakan bentukan QR Code. Di bawah ini beberapa aplikasi QR Code.

Petunjuk arah di Airport.

Iklan Sebuah Perusahaan

Untuk mengetahui lebih lengkap: Mobile Skynet, http://www.mobileskynet.com

]]> http://mobileskynet.wordpress.com/2008/07/22/pengantar-mobile-skynet/feed/ 0 mobileskynet http://mobileskynet.wordpress.com/2008/07/22/mobile-barcodes-now-speak-to-us-quite-literally/ http://mobileskynet.wordpress.com/2008/07/22/mobile-barcodes-now-speak-to-us-quite-literally/#comments Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:44:16 +0000 mobileskynet http://mobileskynet.wordpress.com/?p=13 Continue reading →]]> http://www.digitalworldtokyo.com/index.php/digital_tokyo/articles/mobile_barcodes_now_speak_to_us_quite_literally/

Like many Far-Eastern technologies, Japan’s QR Code gets attention in the West more for being exotic than for any real benefit it brings, so we fully expect the latest all-singing version of the 2D barcode to follow suit.

A consortium of three companies has decided to improve on the usual URL-carrying QR Codes by tweaking the data in each black and white square to contain a brief snatch of audio and a simple image.

The Voice QR, as it’s called, simply needs to be scanned with the camera on a mobile phone for it to give up its hidden treasure without the need to connect to a website.

That might be a squeaky voice saying “Hello,” “Well done on getting into college,” or “Thanks for your hard work.” At least that’s what the examples we saw are capable of.

Quite why anyone would need any of this cumbersome technology to deliver a facile automated message – it’s limited to two seconds – is beyond us, but the grinning ninnies on the product website seem to be ecstatic beyond measure.

The consortium sees Voice QR Codes delivering multi-media jingles from posters, books and product packaging. For that to happen, it will have to persuade mobile phone makers to install software that understands the new kind of QR code – currently, only seven handsets are capable of doing so. Yeah, and we know it sounds like a dumbass April Fool gag, but check out the site for yourself – sho’ nuff seems real.

The Knightsbridge store will run a campaign featuring a technology which lets people interact with ads using their phones

Jonathan Richards

One hundred and ten years after it introduced the world’s first moving staircase, the department store Harrods is pioneering another technology: advertisements which talk to your mobile phone.

The Knightsbridge store is understood to be the first British retailer to run print ads featuring ‘mobile barcodes’, tiny squares showing black and white shapes which, when a mobile phone takes a picture of them, provide information to the phone via the web.

Just as a traditional barcode can identify a product when swiped in a scanner, ‘mobile barcodes’ allow a phone to interact with a billboard or newspaper advertisement via its camera, and are being embraced by marketers as a way of offering additional information to customers.

The technology does not require a particularly advanced phone – though a 2 megapixel camera with auto-focus is recommended – and once photographed, the Harrods ‘code’ will direct a reader to one of the store’s websites via their phone’s web browser.

The codes will feature in a series of ads in London and national media to publicise a new exhibition put on by Harrods called Design Icons, which features Vivienne Westwood, the fashion designer, and the architect of the new St Pancras International station.

In an attempt to shrug off its establishment image and show it is embracing the digital age, the Knightsbridge store will also set up a profile on MySpace, the social networking site, and send out alerts for events at the exhibition using ‘Twitter’, a messaging service favoured by the Silicon Valley elite.

“We’re trying to be a bit pioneering with this,” Martin Buckley, head of marketing promotion at Harrods, said. “We want to target a new customer base – thought leaders, as well as students – and this is a way of communicating with them through a different medium that feels new.”

Mark Tomblin, director of strategy at TBG, the digital agency which advised Harrods on the campaign, acknowledged that Harrods’ traditional customer base may not be overly familiar with the concept of mobile barcodes, but that that didn’t bother him.

“This is an attempt to connect with a more tech-savvy audience, and frankly we’re quite pleased if the whole campaign remains a bit ‘cult’,” he said.

Mobile barcodes – sometimes known as QR codes – have been used in Japan and South Korea for several years, and are gradually being embraced by UK advertisers as more and more phones become capable of interacting with objects around them via barcodes.

Film advertisements, for instance, will be able to link to sites with session times, and fashion ads could provide store information such as location and opening times.

At present only the most advanced phones, such as Nokia’s 95, have pre-installed software which enables them to read the codes, but several providers offer ‘code reading’ software which can be downloaded onto other phones, and in the future more phones will have the capability ‘out of the box’, Nokia said.

Faris Yakob, a strategist at Naked Communications, the London media strategy agency, said: “Anything that helps blend the online and the offline is a good thing, and the mobile – being such as interactive device – is a perfect platform for that.”

The reason uptake in European and other developed markets had been slow was because there was disagreement about which standard would be used to print the codes, industry experts said.

One group, which is backed by Nokia, the handset manufacturer, favours a particular type of format known as a ‘QR code’. Another wants a rival standard, known as ‘dot matrix’, to be used.

Daniel Rosen, director of the mobile division at AKQA, which ran a campaign using barcodes for Microsoft’s Xbox console last year, said: “Mobile barcodes are definitely going to make outdoor and print media more powerful, but until the mobile carriers begin pre-installing software which can read such codes on their devices, they’re likely to stay on the periphery.”

A new study released by Juniper Research predicts that retailers will have issued almost three billion mobile coupons to customers by 2011, with just under $7 billion of discounts redeemed.

Juniper also predicts that mobile ticketing – where customers receive event tickets on their phones – will grow in popularity over the next few years, with 2.6 billion tickets worth $87 billion, delivered by 2011.

Growth in both areas will be driven by increasing use of near field communication (NFC) technology, says the report.

Customers signed up for mobile coupons are sent a unique barcode ID to their mobile phone. They then receive regular, personalised text messages offering discounts on certain items. To redeem coupons customers present their two dimensional barcode ID which is then scanned at the till using “charge coupled device” (CCD) imaging technology.

Juniper says the technology is cheaper for merchants than paper campaigns and provides a one-to-one marketing opportunity. In addition, mobile coupons have a higher conversion rate and reduce fraud, says the report.

But many retailers are reluctant to take up the technology, in part because of the need to move from laser scanners at the point of sale to optical readers that use CCD technology to read the barcodes.

Last year UK e-payments outfit PayPoint introduced a mobile-phone-based loyalty scheme allowing shoppers to receive money-off coupons via SMS text messages.

The Shop Scan Save service, which was developed by The Light Agency, has been used by retailers P&G, Nestle, Mars, Unilever and Red Bull.