Both OMA, the Open Mobile Alliance and GS1, responsible for the 1D Barcode Number assignment worldwide, have picked up interest in Mobile Barcodes. Both organizations have now approved QR Codes and Datamatrix as the two defacto 2D barcode standards.
Great!

Both organizations also try to define an interoperability standard especially in the field of Shortcodes aka indirect mode (number to be translated into an URL on a Server). GS1 points to the already existing EAN barcode numbers which are well established whereas OMA presents a different way of doing it (see mainly page 20).


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GS1

Datamatrix and QR Codes as GS1 approved 2D Barcodes, June 12-13 in New York.
Mobile Commerce Whitepaper by GS1
GS1 Japan on QR Codes.

OMA

Mobile Codes, MC (V1_0)(June 2008)

• V1_0 Candidate Reference Release (Whitepaper), June 2008
• V1_0 Good Progress on requirements
• V1_0 Consensus on definition of Indirect Mode Ecosystem
• V1_0 Candidate Release ~2Q09

OMA (October 2007)

Work to be undertaken:
The work will include recommendations of: choice of 2D barcode symbology(ies); the data stored in the barcodes; and terminal behaviours in response to reading barcodes, including behaviours with respect to some existing (1D and 2D) barcodes. The aim is to re-use as much of existing standards as possible. This way we can get a recommendation published as soon as possible, to avoid further fragmentation of the market. Prime candidates for re-use include the industrial standards for barcode symbologies QR and Datamatrix, and the NFC Forum NDEF data structure. The normative specifications to be developed shall ensure backward compatibility with relevant 2D barcode systems, so that mobile devices that are compliant to the specifications to be developed shall be able to recognize and process such existing 2D barcode print-outs or images.

The list of relevant specifications includes:
Quick Response, ISO/IEC 18004:2000
Datamatrix ISO/IEC 16022:2000
NFC Data Exchange Format (NDEF) Technical Specification
NFC Smart Poster Record Type Definition (RTD) Technical Specification
NFC URI RTD Technical Specification
NTT DoCoMo Bar Code Functions

Check it out for yourself:
Google Trends on different Barcodes

Compare with last year and Japan.

This recruitement ad was recently published in the swiss newspaper 20 Minuten.

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And SBB, Swiss Federal Railways, also uses them more and more:




See also:
More swiss QR Code projects

Image: Houston Fence Project

Houston Fence

The Houston Fence, located on the corner of Broadway and Houston, is an temporary outdoor installation inspired by QR-code patterns. These bar codes, when scanned with a mobile phone, allow pedestrians to seamlessly connect to online content such as web sites, blogs and others.

Scan the QR Code:



Via David Hartman

"bidi" stands for bidimensional and is the spanish name for 2D barcodes, the QR Code being the most famous one. With bidibooks you can now experience the first multilingual QR Code Books in Europe. Read the PDF to understand what it is all about.

And check out the catalogue of all Bidibooks out now and upcoming.

See also:
El Paìs: Los libros no terminan en el papel

※ Crossposted on kaywa.com

Emice gave me the green lights to blog this. The campaign will hit Brazil tomorrow. In her words:

This is the campaign for Valentine's for Fast Shop (www.fastshop.com.br), a retail for eletronics in Brazil. And just as a reminder: we celebrate Valentine's on June 12th here.

The campaign's name is "The Code of Love". The QR code is the main character, even though most people won't know at first what it is. Fast Shop has a strong appeal to innovation and the QR code exemplifies this perfectly. Also, Valentine's is known for the huge sale of mobiles among young people, so the QR code is pertinent.

The campaign is focused on Sao Paulo and will be starring in newspapers ads, POP materials such as window shops, alarm antennas and adhesives on the main shopping malls, catalogues that will be sent to AB class people homes. And we added a hotsite (www.fastshop.com.br/desvendeocodigo) that will be on after the campaign. The codes display messages such as present suggestions, store's solutions; they also link to the hotsite.

This is the second time Dentsu Latin America offers a QR Code campaign
for Fast Shop. First time was in 2007.

More pictures:
Poster
Poster II
FAST Shopping Bag

I just found the above through the blog from Bruno Aurelio.

Earlier this year, Umbro brought us the Football Shirt with QR Code. And last year in February, Nike Football used QR Codes for the first time in Europe.

Our partner anthrazit used QR Codes to offer anyone a free ticket to Orbit-iEX.

I refer here to Sean Owen's Barcode Contents. I made sometimes minor changes in the quotes (URL change and adding more examples for sending SMS), but remained true to the text.

URL (Mobile Web address) - Example

The most common application of barcodes is to encode the text of URL. To do so, simply encode exactly the text of the URL in the barcode: "http://anyurl.mobi". Include the protocol ("http://", here) to ensure it is recognized as an URL.

Readers should open the URL in the device's web browser when decoding a URL. It is probably desirable for a reader to display the URL and ask the user whether to proceed, so that the user may see the URL before accessing it.

Agree 100% and we think it's important that the user chooses to proceed or not. - Kaywa Reader works like this. If possible do not use capital letters for URL's.

E-mail address - Example

To encode an e-mail address like sean@example.com, one could simply encode "sean@example.com". However to ensure it is recognized as an e-mail address, it is advisable to create a proper mailto URI from the address: "mailto:sean@example.com".

Agree 100% - Kaywa Reader works like this

Telephone numbers - Example

A tel URI should be used to encode a telephone number, to ensure that the digits are understood as a telephone number. Further, it is advisable to include prefixes that make the number accessible internationally. For example, to encode the US phone number 212-555-1212, one should encode "tel:+12125551212". This tel URI includes a "+1" prefix that will make it usable outside the United States.
Readers should invoke the device's dialer, if applicable, and pre-fill it with the given number, but not automatically initiate a call.

Agree 100%, also about not initiating a call automatically. Kaywa Reader works like this.

SMS - Example

Much like an e-mail address, one can encode an SMS shortcode or number by creating an sms URI. For example to create a link to the number "12345" one would encode "sms:12345" or "sms:+12024561111?body=hello%20there" or "sms:+12024561111,+15102061079". See this draft of the SMS URI specification for details.
Readers should open a new SMS message, ready for the user to compose and send it.

Difference! The Kaywa Reader used and uses currently smsto! I think if we have mailto, smsto would make more sense. If there is a standard (right now it's a Draft) however, everybody should try to follow it.

Contact information - Example
The trickiest of all and the least standardized.
There is vCard, MECARD from NTTDoCoMo and another KDDI format.
Kaywa Reader uses vCard Standard for Name, Email and Telephone Number.

BEGIN:VCARD
N: Your name
EMAIL: Your email
TEL: Your phone number internationally
END:VCARD

For international use, I think vCard is definitely the way to go. It's a bit more verbous than MECARD, it's true, but people do not have to learn another format. The optimum would be to support both MECARD (established in Japan) and vCard (established here).