QR Clip



In the above picture you can see the QR Code on a flyer and on the CD itself. By reading it with your camera phone, you go immediately to the artist's mobile site.

But there is another cool thing which you can do - offer directly the resource via QR without going to a mobile site - as long as you want to give away something for free. You can see an example in the Tryout Zone (and below), and naturally you can offer any resource directly behind a QR Code, be it an image, a MP3 or a 3gp video.

Try this to see what I mean:


Now what is interesting with japanese QR Clip from above is that they create different addresses for the same resource, to measure the impact of the ad campaigns from different vendors.

via Punit

Image: La Rivière aux canards

La Rivière aux canards is a very fruitful resource to know more about the usages of QR Codes in Japan. And as he is a frenchman, it certainly is easier to decode than the kanji, hiragan, katakana websites - at least for me (besides I love them, but I am still in early stages with my japanese). "Anyways", as they say in Deadwood, it shows one time more the diversity of uses you can obtain with QR.

I do not know if such a scenario would be possible with Datamatrix. Anybody?

Stephanie wrote a Computer and Handset Literacy Checklist and it's well worth a reading and sometimes very funny:)

To the mobile literacy list I would add:

• Being able to read through the marketing blabla.
• Know some mobile blogs to find information and get advice when needed
• Understanding that design is not everything and it's often coming with poor usability.
• Being able to resist a 0. $ phone with a two-year subscription.
• When buying making sure, you can give your phone back - (would the RAZR be still successfull then?)
• How to access a site on the internet, when to stop a download and why
• How to use your phone camera. Having an idea about Pixels, Macros and other functions.
• Knowledge of some of the acronyms and unfortunately in mobile there is a plethora. GSM, GPRS, UMTS, EDGE, HSDPA and 2.5, 3G / GPS, A-GPS / SMS, MMS / ShortID
• Basic knowledge about Barcodes: One- and Two-dimensional, EAN Barcode, QR Code, Datamatrix Code / ISO-Standards versus Proprietary Ones;)

As mentioned on Sunday in swiss newspapers, Vodafone wants to sell his 25% stake in Swisscom back to the biggest telco in Switzerland. The quotes from the Register article shed some light on Vodafone's policy shift:

Vodafone has made two key changes of policy in its core European territories - reducing handset subsidies to the extent that 3G phone sales have nosedived, and planning to defocus its marketing efforts on advanced video-driven applications like MMS (Multimedia Messaging) in favour of using its more efficient 3G networks to compete on pricing in traditional services.
[...] Vodafone will rethink how to gain some short term ROI from its 3G networks - and low cost, VoIP-killing voice does seem the most obvious, if least lucrative, option - and how quickly it may be able to attract users to 3G-plus services, a vital calculation if it is to justify its currently ongoing rollout of HSDPA.

Whereas the japanese operators continue to deploy 3G speedily, europeans are falling behind. An explanation to this is the subsidizing of phones which make it difficult to cut costs on tariffs too. As T-Mobile CEO Obermann said at 2005's 3GSM:

"We are at the crossroads between device cost and usage cost. Drop subsidy and we can cut tariffs. Customers want lower tariffs. They drive usage and loyalty. Subsidy needs to be cut, then removed."

This is a vicious circle - the phone subsidizing being somehow the equivalent of the free internet services without the possibility of ad-spending - and I think the subsidizing has to change in quality as well. Wouldn't it make sense to subsidize only 3G phones which offer good mobile internet capabilities, decent lens quality (with macro) and music storage, but without all the schlock of video phoning and mobile tv etc.? From time to time I wonder why operators and handset manufacturers want to go faster than the consumer can follow. As long as s/he doesn't understand the simple and basic stuff, it will be difficult to move up on the higher layers.

On the other hand, as long as operators do not create a healthy environment for innovative, but also more pragmatic consumer services by third parties, we will hardly see a quicker adoption. The japanese operators have understood this early on, whereas european operators continue to serve mainly business clients and tend to disregard the rest of the population.