Wednesday, June 1, 2011

QR Codes - Something new I learned from BEA

I have many blog posts to make but have been deathly ill (some kind of flu I think as I can't keep anything down and that is making me very weak and I'm sleeping many hours out of the day. So today just a quick post on something I learned at the BEA.

One of the things that seemed to be everywhere was QR Codes (Quick Response). These are a square bar code that appear as follows:



These codes are read by various camera phones (such as the iphone) and will take you to a URL. The above code will take you to this site. I think you should make liberal use of QR Codes on marketing materials - heck I even saw someone with a T-shirt with a QR code on it - and lots of people "snapping" a shot of it to see what they will get. To generate one you can use this link.

11 comments:

Paolo Amoroso said...

Here is another online QR code generator for several types of information: http://zxing.appspot.com/generator/

Joan Reeves said...

Robin, thanks for the heads up on QR Codes.

As someone who is also sick, I hope you feel better soon. I thought I just had a "summer cold" but think I'm going to break down and go to the doc because this terrible sore throat might be strep. Dang it! I'm too busy to be sick.

Get well soon.

Best wishes,
Joan Reeves

Lyle Blake Smythers said...

Interesting that the terminology seems to have changed on these. I first heard about them when I saw a couple of online articles about them about a year ago, at which time they were being called 2D barcodes. Any idea how prevalent they are in the marketplace right now?

Robin Sullivan said...

Still on the 'cutting edge' but I expect to see a lot more of them. In just the last 10 days or so I've run across quite a few of them at BEA and Balticon. I think just they are somewhat of an "inside joke" to some - in other words I saw b&W QR codes pasted to windows at balticon and I suspect most did not know what they were or what they were for - but for those "in the know" it took them to someplace that might just be of interest to them.

Robin Sullivan said...

@slingwords - thanks - mine is definitely not strep - its a stomach thing - spent all day Monday getting intimate with my porcelain (TMI?) I ate some toast and eggs today - we'll see how it goes. I'm probably losing some of the weight I gained on the road but would have preferred to lose it by biking which I'm sorry to say I can't do. Hope your throat is feeling better.

Robin Sullivan said...

@Paolo - thanks that is another nice one as well. If others find some let me know and I'll put a list together.

David Gaughran said...

They could be really cool things to put on bookmarks or business cards.

Nancy Beck said...

Robin,

I was reminded of QR codes because someone came across my blog, did the Google Followers thing or whatever; she said she was trying to look at my blog on her cell/smartphone but everything looked weird.

At first, I had no idea what she was talking about. But then I heard about these QR codes 2 weeks ago, and though maybe that's what she was talking about.

Now my blog QR is on my blog; I'm hoping that anyone who has a smartphone will be able to better see my blog. :-)

Nancy Beck said...

Whoops...forgot to add...love the new look. :-)

Robin Sullivan said...

Thanks Nancy...I feel like I'm cleaning house - getting everything better organized etc. It's kind of grown unwieldy so I'm glad to get it more organized.

Robin Sullivan said...

@David - yes those are the places I see them the most often: Postcards, bookmarks, business cards. I'm going to be adding them to the back of my next cart printing.