I just reprinted my business card and put a QR (Quick Response) code on it for my personal website. At a Silicon Valley networking event a few weeks ago, during the obligatory biz card exchange ritual, someone asked me what it was and another person commented that they are all the rage on biz cards now.
I first started noticing QR codes in the wild on some food item labels I was buying from the
local grocery store -they were so tiny, less than a half inch square and even smaller, one could hardly notice them. Now I am used to seeing them in the New York Times Sunday Magazine and maybe, if I recall correctly, the Economist. I also recall very careful written instructions in the advert on what to do with it :) ah - a way to bridge the printed media world with the digital.
Quick Response or QR codes are beginning to appear in major print publications, on storefronts and buildings, on posters attached to kiosks and bus stops, on food item labels and clothing tags. Much of this is due to the proliferation of smart phones, apps that can read QR codes and act upon them and people who recognize and use them. In print, businesses are using them to send people to web sites, their social media site, or directly to specific apps.
It is said that in 2009 Google has sent thousands of decals free to US businesses with instructions on how to create QR Codes, place them store fronts to enable them to be found on the the Place Page on Google where people find reviews, find an offer, place a star for future reference or create a favorite place for others to see on Google Maps. – all on their mobile phones. But I can't remember ever seeing one.
I went to Kaywa, one of several online sites to generate my web site's QR code. These sites can create a QR code for a URL, text, phone number or SMS(and give you both the image and the permalink for the QR code and apps that can read them are easily found in your phone's app store. Then using an app on my iphone, I tested it by reading it from my laptop display and from my paper biz card. It worked! But it did take a while for the the app to acknowledge "I got it." Maybe too long for me to make use of it while I am out in the wild. But I am looking forward to innovative and creative ways of using them in the future.
...As one German-speaking person proclaimed “QR-Code - 2011 - Jahr des 2D Barcode Marketing”...
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