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HOW NOT TO: Create Your Own QR Codes

Roger — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 19:15:41 +0000

Mashable has a post titled “HOW TO: Create and Deploy Your Own QR Codes” which is supposed to be a step-by-step guide to creating a QR Code. There is nothing about deployment and the final step of the guide produces a QR Code (image below) that resolves as “Congratulations on your first child! Here’s a quick cartoon from Penny Arcade to share in your joy: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/5/10/ “. Maybe they got the title wrong and it should have read “HOW NOT TO: Create Your Own QR Codes”. What do you think?

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Use The AT&T Code Generator And Show Your Ignorance

Roger — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 10:13:45 +0000

After breaking the news 3 days ago on AT&T’s Datamatrix and QR Code scanner and generator here is a closer look.

Imagine the scene (you may even have done it), you meet someone who gives you a QR Coded business card, you scan it with your mobile device and store the contact details. Job done.

Here is what happens when you meet someone who has put an AT&T generated code on their business card.

You look at the code on the business card, “This doesn’t look like a QR Code” you say. “Ah!” they say “I generated it with AT&T’s code generator, I think it is a Datamatrix Code”. You scan it with your mobile device to see what happens and because most scanners will decode both types of code it works.

However the scanned code reads ‘5240000052838881′, “It’s just a number” you say. “Ah!” they say “That’s the unique identifier that is used when you access the server where my contact details are”. “OK” you say, “how do I access the server”? “Just download the AT&T Code Scanner, you can get it from AT&T or an app store” they say.

Back at your office you search for AT&T’s code generator, go to the download site and read the following: “Your Device is not compatible to download this app. Here is a list of compatible devices for the AT&T Code Scanner App: Apple iPhone 2G, 3G, 3Gs, iOS4 (coming soon) Android Motorola Backflip, HTC Aria, Samsung Captivate RIM Blackberry 9700, 9000, 8900, 8520, 8320″.

You think about this, the owner of this business card has chosen not to embed their data in the code but to put it somewhere where you can’t get at it. Not only that but even if you had been able to download the application it would (in the absence of a WiFi connection) have used your data plan to retrieve their contact details. In the absence of both it would have been impossible.

Your conclusion is inevitable, you throw the business card away on the grounds that anyone who uses this proprietary system hasn’t a clue what they are doing.

Agree? Disagree? I would be interested to hear your comments.

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What the New Facebook Stickers Should Have Looked Like

Roger — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 13:19:17 +0000

The news that Facebook is sending out window stickers with text to SMS instructions to selected local businesses is not a surprise following as it does Google’s mailing of thousands of QR Coded decals last December. What is surprising is that Facebook chose not to use a QR Code (image below).

My art work was greatly helped by Christopher Penn’s images.

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Facebook, QR Codes and Social Search

Roger — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 15:13:46 +0000

The news that some Facebook users had seen a couple of extra QR Code related links on their profile page caused a little excitement yesterday. TechCrunch were hyperventilating with a post headed “Facebook Kicks Off Implementation of QR Codes” and the Twittersphere was awash with questions and comments. Some confusion developed as no sooner had Facebook put them up than they took them down again. I emailed the Facebook Press Office and received the following response “We are constantly experimenting with new ideas and products internally. We don’t have anything to announce publicly at this time”.

When/if Facebook do permanently introduce QR Code generation off the page then we can well and truly regard it as the tipping point for QR Codes. Let’s hope their 400 million active users don’t try to generate a QR Code at the same time!

What was interesting about this episode was the flow of traffic to this website as users who are unfamiliar with QR Codes searched the web for more information. Visitors arriving via a Search Engine increased by more than 96% but this was dwarfed by the increase in visitors who arrived from Social Media at 279%.

Does this mean that Social Media is the new search? With the advent of Google Social Search and social media search engines like WhosTalkin and SocialMention my guess is that users are finding these increasingly useful when it comes to researching breaking news.

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SXSW QR Codes Fail

Roger — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 21:22:05 +0000

As we previously posted badges at SXSW have a photo and a QR Code that decodes to a personal page where delegates can leave a message or access contact information. Organizers hoped that this will cut down on the paper footprint of SXSW by reducing the need for business cards. However scanning the QR Code leads to a simple login page (image below) which contradicts the 3rd Rule: Make the content valuable. The content behind the login page may be valuable but the page itself is not. How do you make the login page valuable and decrease the abandonment rate? Provide just enough information for the user to feel compelled to login and view what comes next. Simple really.

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QR Codes and Neustar’s Ecosystem

Roger — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 14:31:44 +0000

It’s not magic, all you need to run a QR Code campaign is a QR Code that decodes to a mobile site landing page and a deployment plan.

It’s not a mystery either, a QR or Datamatrix Code is free to generate and use, and you can use it in a print ad, on a can, on a poster or wherever you want.

In addition if you put Google Analytics on your mobile site you can measure the popularity, the conversion rate and ROI of your campaign for free. And the cost of the campaign is simply the cost of deployment plus the cost of the mobile site.

Easy.

However that is not the way Neustar see it and they have conjured up a methodology worthy of a 19th century magician. In a Press Release last week they announced the Mobile Barcode Clearinghouse Service and this is how it looks in a diagram taken from their Barcodes Overview Presentation:

You can see from the ecosystem they have created how Neustar intend to generate revenue for themselves and the telcos. Forget all the smoke and mirrors on the periphery of the diagram, the cash generator is the Global Registry and this is where the client or their agency is expected to pay for registering and using a 2d barcode.

Why should anyone pay to register or use a 2d barcode? It’s a good question and Neustar have the answer. You pay because the 2d barcode that you get does not decode as the url of the landing page but as a totally different code that has to be looked up in a database (the Global Registry in the diagram) in order to find the url of the landing page!

Breathtaking isn’t it? The user scans the 2d barcode, it decodes to something like “mc*nsr*54321″ and this is sent through the mobile network operator’s local gateway to Neustar’s clearinghouse. The clearinghouse does a registry lookup then queries Neustar’s campaign manager system for a URL. Then the URL is sent back to the user’s mobile device which downloads the landing page.

Of course this only works if the user’s mobile device is decoding with the Neomedia or I-nigma readers who are Neustar’s partners. If it happens to be using one of the many other readers available the user will be left staring at a meaningless line of alphanumeric characters.

So if you are a brand or an agency with more money than sense and you are thinking of implementing a QR Code campaign then you may wish to play in Neustar’s ecosystem, with its convoluted lookup and reader limitations.

Or you could just do what Google did with its 100,000 QR Code decals or Pepsi with its million cans of QR Coded Pepsi Max, simply initiate a campaign without a superfluous ecosystem.

Agree/Disagree?

Added 8 hours later: I have been asked about the security aspects of QR Codes with reference to Neustar’s putative barcode clearinghouse service.

Neustar believe that their indirect QR Coding is inherently more secure because the user’s mobile device only accesses urls registered with their system.

I have three observations:

1. Hackers at the annual Pwn2Own contest have so far been unable to break into or exploit any mobile operating system.

2. QR Codes are no more or less secure than the link they point to, so if a user is obsessively security conscious they will not be clicking any links at all.

3. The only exploit that I know of with QR Codes is QR Code switching and even Neustar would not claim to prevent that…

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Hijack Google’s QR Codes?

Roger — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 11:55:52 +0000

This post is simply a pointer to a page on hijacking Google’s favorite places QR Code.

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Google Video Oversight

Roger — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 14:00:36 +0000

Google’s “We’re a Favorite Place on Google” video is a subtle test of observation skills. The video centers around the Kasa Indian Eatery on18th Street, San Francisco and the receipt of their Google’s favorite place decal. The decal should have a QR Code like the one below which resolves to Kasa’s Places Page.

Here is the video, observe closely….

Consider your observational skills very good if you noticed that when the envelope is opened the QR Code on the decal is incorrect and resolves not to the Kasa restaurant but to Sweetgreen’s Restaurant, on M St NW, Washington, DC.

Consider your observational skills outstanding if you also noticed that the QR Code on the decal being stuck to the window is again incorrect and resolves not to the Kasa restaurant but to Tarrytown House Estate & Conference Center, Tarrytown, NY.

In fact the correct QR Code does not appear anywhere in the video, quite an achievement really when you come to think about it….

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Guide to the World in Pictures with QR Codes

Roger — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 11:45:43 +0000

If you have traveled to a foreign country then the chances are that you have at least one of of the 200+ Rough Guides on your bookshelf. Now they have published a collection of photographs from their picture library called Earthbound: a Rough Guide to the World in Pictures. Each of the images is accompanied by a QR Code and each code resolves to the image’s location on Google Maps.

It is a fine book, with some stunning photographs and Rough Guides are to be congratulated on making use of two dimensional barcodes in this way but I can’t help feeling they may have missed a trick.

The QR Codes are encoded as unique TinyURLs that redirect to the appropriate Google Maps URL. If there had been an intermediary step, for example TinyURL to (say) http://www.roughguides.com/marketingstats/picture001 …002, 003 etc., then a redirect to Google Maps, Rough Guides (using the Google Analytics already on their website) would have been able to gather excellent statistical data on relative frequency of use.

Admittedly each TinyURL has its own statistics page, with a unique ID and code (which you have to remember at the time you make the URL). However visiting 250+ individual pages to gather the statistics does not seem like a good idea!

The QR Code in the picture above of a Kioscos in Puerto Rico leads to its location on a Google map.

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Why QR Codes Will Succeed

Roger — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 12:53:34 +0000

The CEO talks with one of his creatives…

Please leave a comment on the video (It took me a couple of hours but was it worth it…?)

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