QUOTE>
It probably won’t be a newspaper that does this, but I wonder if some art student will take this concept and turn the whole town into a hyperlinked environment. Point at the bus stop and get an rss feed of the next bus’s position, point at the restaurant window and get the menu and daily specials, etc. In fact a savvy newspaper could be the catalyst for this.
QUOTE END<

We are currently working on a project called DokoDare (Where?Who?) which goes right into this direction. If you know people in the US who would be interested in doing something like that, let me know.
Best
Roger

A few preliminary thoughts:

It will be easy for some to say that the audience is so small that it’s not worth the effort, smaller than twitter even, but if the future is in niche audiences, then it’s worth the effort, which isn’t much trouble, really. I have a theory that the smaller the audience the better, and if you get in while the audience is “too small to be worth it,” that’s when you really get noticed and put down valuable roots as the community grows. It’s just one of many small audiences.

On my Nokia phone, which is supposed to be already compatible, I found i-Nigma’s software to be the easiest to download and use.

I could see the codes being used on several levels: a logo on a business card or promotional materials for the newspaper, or a logo in an ad, but it’ll be interesting to see if it becomes more of an information and news delivering device. It probably won’t be a newspaper that does this, but I wonder if some art student will take this concept and turn the whole town into a hyperlinked environment. Point at the bus stop and get an rss feed of the next bus’s position, point at the restaurant window and get the menu and daily specials, etc. In fact a savvy newspaper could be the catalyst for this.

It might require the kind of marketing that Apple is a genius at, but that newspapers have always been awful at. But newspapers are starting to think about community building, so that helps.

Several things have to line up: a camera phone with a data plan, with the software installed, within easy reach of the user, who is motivated by the content to snap the image. It will really take off when it’s a one-button, top button thing to do, with no fumbling. Almost as easy as “surfing the real world” by pointing to one object or another.

I hope it gets newspapers finally thinking about where and when readers want news, and what they’re holding in their hands at that moment. That’s not something “one size fits all” newspapers have been thinking about. For this, newspapers might want to think about, “where would people find newspapers and wi-fi, with a few minutes to spare?” and target coffee shops, pizza parlors and the like.

That’s a lot to say about this odd little experiment that’s just starting, but I’ll be looking forward to seeing what happens.

The difference is huge, not only because preinstalled QR Code readers are already in the millions – thanks to Nokia, Asus, Sharp and soon Google’s Android, but also because there are several reader companies supporting this standard.

Regarding cost, QR Codes also offer a much more pleasant perspective with online and offline codes – offline codes being free of charge.

Last but not least, if there is a compelling offer being the QR Code, early adopters will use it even at today’s high data rates (which have to come down nevertheless).
Otherwise the iPhone or the Blackberry would never have taken off.