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Enough with the QR Codes

ramisayar.com

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Re: Enough with the QR Codes

#31

Post by DHowett »

corin_ wrote: post #30

Essentially the biggest reason they are used so much is because of the argument "why not?" I was in a meeting with the organisers of a pretty big consumer tech event, a couple of clever, successful people, and they mentioned that they were going to be putting QR codes on nearly all branding at the event we were discussing. I, slightly rudely, chuckled and asked why on earth they would do that; the answer: "We've foun…

The real WTF is... Almost free? Like, they found a company that will, what, sell you an image of black and white boxes for mere pennies? God, imagine the money they could make swindling companies with a per-scan advertising fee! Pixels will be mined like gold!

Apparently nobody in Corporate has heard of a free online barcode generator. You can even print the barcode as many times as you want! Maybe they just do not trust free services?

Re: Enough with the QR Codes

#34

Post by cema »

klinquist wrote: post #29

I do believe I've found a decent use for them - I wrote an app that can push an iOS mobile provisioning wifi profile to an iPhone - this allows your guests to scan a QR code to have their iOS device connect to your wifi network (without directly sharing your WPA key with them). You can even geofence the QR code so that if it is scanned > 1/2 mile from your home, the profile will not be pushed. You must use RedLaser t…

A good use case, indeed. Thank you!

Re: Enough with the QR Codes

#35

Post by jarek »

DHowett wrote: post #31
corin_ wrote: post #30

Essentially the biggest reason they are used so much is because of the argument "why not?" I was in a meeting with the organisers of a pretty big consumer tech event, a couple of clever, successful people, and they mentioned that they were going to be putting QR codes on nearly all branding at the event we were discussing. I, slightly rudely, chuckled and asked why on earth they would do that; the answer: "We've foun…

The real WTF is... Almost free? Like, they found a company that will, what, sell you an image of black and white boxes for mere pennies? God, imagine the money they could make swindling companies with a per-scan advertising fee! Pixels will be mined like gold! Apparently nobody in Corporate has heard of a free online barcode generator. You can even print the barcode as many times as you want! Maybe they just do not t…

I imagine it's the tracking and statistics provided by paid services that is the really useful point from business point of view. Marketing people love response tracking.

Re: Enough with the QR Codes

#36

Post by GuiA »

klinquist wrote: post #29

I do believe I've found a decent use for them - I wrote an app that can push an iOS mobile provisioning wifi profile to an iPhone - this allows your guests to scan a QR code to have their iOS device connect to your wifi network (without directly sharing your WPA key with them). You can even geofence the QR code so that if it is scanned > 1/2 mile from your home, the profile will not be pushed. You must use RedLaser t…

There are definitely decent uses for QR codes.

For instance in my lab, we've used QR codes containing YAML to allow any user to load up the appropriate configuration file in a custom built generic-purpose app to interact with a specific tangible system.

A concrete use of that would be as follow— imagine a museum with various installations, all of which you can interact with using your smartphone. Each installation could have a QR code next to it, which you scan from an app— which would then load up the proper UI for you to interact with the installation (the QR code could point to interpretable markup code for building a UI , etc.).

QR codes are great when you need to give your users instant access to more than ~20 characters of information (less than that and is just faster to type) OR non human interpretable information. Unfortunately, most people use them for URLs, which actually fill both these criteria.

Re: Enough with the QR Codes

#37

Post by geon »

klinquist wrote: post #29

I do believe I've found a decent use for them - I wrote an app that can push an iOS mobile provisioning wifi profile to an iPhone - this allows your guests to scan a QR code to have their iOS device connect to your wifi network (without directly sharing your WPA key with them). You can even geofence the QR code so that if it is scanned > 1/2 mile from your home, the profile will not be pushed. You must use RedLaser t…

> You must use RedLaser to scan the QR code - it is the only that pushes URLs out to Safari

I believe both Zbar and Zxing do that.

Re: Enough with the QR Codes

#38

Post by corin_ »

jarek wrote: post #35
DHowett wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real WTF is... Almost free? Like, they found a company that will, what, sell you an image of black and white boxes for mere pennies? God, imagine the money they could make swindling companies with a per-scan advertising fee! Pixels will be mined like gold! Apparently nobody in Corporate has heard of a free online barcode generator. You can even print the barcode as many times as you want! Maybe they just do not t…

I imagine it's the tracking and statistics provided by paid services that is the really useful point from business point of view. Marketing people love response tracking.

Nope, in this case it was the creating of QR codes for printing. Don't worry, I did laugh pretty hard right in front of them and told them that it's easy to make them absolutely free - ah well, they'd already paid at this point.

Re: Enough with the QR Codes

#40

Post by Scotchy »

corin_ wrote: post #38
jarek wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine it's the tracking and statistics provided by paid services that is the really useful point from business point of view. Marketing people love response tracking.

Nope, in this case it was the creating of QR codes for printing. Don't worry, I did laugh pretty hard right in front of them and told them that it's easy to make them absolutely free - ah well, they'd already paid at this point.

Well you can still track how many people scan it, right ? e.g. by providing a proxy link ?
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