Momentum is building for QR codes
I get pushback every time I blog or talk about QR codes. SMS—text messaging—makes far more sense, I’m told. Everyone has the ability to send and get a text but getting a QR scanner is a hassle. Until smartphones come equipped with them, QR codes will remain a curiosity and won’t gain anywhere near the traction of texting.
Nonsense, says I.
It’s true that you have to find, download and install a QR scanner if you want to find out what’s hidden behind the codes that are popping up everywhere these days. But it’s the increasing visibility of QR codes that will lead the handset manufacturers to include a scanner out of the box.
The fact that my phone has a video camera has led Sprint to include Qik by default so I can use the phone network, the camera and the app to make video calls. It was the increasing interest in video calls—which more and more people were making despite the hassle of equipping their phones with the right tools—that led the carriers to include apps to accommodate the trend.
People have to make an effort to download and install FourSquare or Gowalla, but that’s not stopping Starbucks and Chili’s from doing deals with the geolocation services. They’ve spotted a trend and want to ride that wave.
There’s no denying that QR codes have momentum. They’re already a big deal in the regions that have led the adoption of mobile technology (like Japan), and now they’re showing up everywhere these days. I see them on business cards, magazine ads, billboards, posters on buses, websites. I also find more and more people asking me to show them how they work. It’s a safe guess that more than half have downloaded and installed a scanner app on the spot after seeing one in action.
Update: I wish I’d held off on posting this item until this morning. A USA Today was delivered to my room this morning, the first one I’ve seen in a while, and I found tags on the front of each section. These are Microsoft tags rather than QR, which address the issue of design, since they can be manipulated to look like just about anything. In fact, Microsoft has design contests for people who express creativity making these tags assume the properties of items like hot air balloons. In USA Today, the tags open photos of the day in the News, Life and Sports sections, and business headlines in the Money section. End update.
QR codes have other advantages over text messages. Send a text and pretty much the only thing you can get back is more text. Scan a code and you can get a video, a website, a contact card, map directions, it can even initiate a phone call.
The codes are free and ridiculously easy to create and reproduce.
Then there’s the cost issue. You may be asking a customer to spend a dime to send or receive a text message, but the action prompted by a QR code is part of the customer’s monthly data plan; in other words, customers won’t be thinking, “I have to pay to get this message.”
Couple the advantages with the growing interest in QR codes and you get an unstoppable trend. No, not everyone may have a code scanner on their handset yet, but they will. Do you want to already be actively creating opportunities for engagement when they do, or do you want to wait until everybody’s already using the technology?
Here are some previous posts I’ve written about QR codes:
- Real-world example of why you need to test QR codes with multiple scanners”
- Are you ready to incorporate QR codes into your communications?
05/30/11 | 18 Comments | Momentum is building for QR codes