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Dear Marketers: Enough with the QR codes

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Re: Dear Marketers: Enough with the QR codes

#51

Post by sologoub »

jmj42 wrote: post #32
mseebach wrote: post #21

Number one missed opportunity for QR-codes: "For Sale/Rent" signs. It actively annoys me that I don't have a super-low-friction way to take a closer look at a for-sale house I'm walking by.

They are starting to show up on realtor for-sale signs. There's one I drive by on my way to/from work that scanned a while back. I landed on the realtor's page about the house (which, BTW, was way out of my price range).

My last attempt to scan one of those took me to the search page not optimized for iPhone/Android on the realtor's personal site... and no clue as to how to find the house I was standing next to.

Re: Dear Marketers: Enough with the QR codes

#52

Post by ColinWright »

rprospero wrote: post #45
ColinWright wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the error-pronedness - clicks are far easier. Can you always type a lengthy URL without any mistakes or having to make corrections? Plus, I can't read a poster and a phone without constantly changing whether I'm looking through glasses or not. I type pretty well, but the scan wins every time. Added in edit: I really, really don't understand the downvotes. I'm offering a point of view as to why QR codes are easie…

It took me 28 seconds to type in this sentence on my cell phone. I didn't use auto-correct, so it's a pretty good match for typing a url, if a little long. That time did include going back through to correct for errors. Comparatively, I've never seen a QR code scan in under a minute, either on my own phone or on one from my friends, family, and coworkers. I could see the glasses thing being a pain.

Running a timer on my desktop, I've just timed pulling my phone from my pocket and scanned a bar code, one handed. Including getting the phone out it took 19 seconds, without any possibility of getting it wrong.

And yes, the glasses thing is a pain, one of the disadvantages of getting old. 8-(

Re: Dear Marketers: Enough with the QR codes

#53

Post by b_emery »

I predict that a few years from now we will not be seeing QR codes. I dislike them because they are ugly and their abuse seems to be widespread and growing, but I can see many reasons, some of which are posted here, why they would be useful. But why does it have to be an ugly code? Getting the data (link?) into the phone is the general problem. Seems like image search is getting to the point where you can scan in a logo, or take a photo of it, and plug that into a search to get to the product/web site etc. The point being that it doesn't have to be an ugly black and while mishmash. How about OCR on the URL?

Re: Dear Marketers: Enough with the QR codes

#56

Post by [deleted] »

canthonytucci wrote: post #10

Why is is so cool to hate on QR codes lately? I've heard Merlin Mann and Marco Arment rag on them pretty often on their podcasts. I don't get it. No matter how ugly, it's still a better way for me to get to your website/app from a physical item (bottle of wine, print ad, whatever) than having me type out a URL....sure they are stuck a bunch of places that make them ugly or inconvenient to actually read....but so are…

[deleted]

Re: Dear Marketers: Enough with the QR codes

#58

Post by rprospero »

ColinWright wrote: post #52
rprospero wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took me 28 seconds to type in this sentence on my cell phone. I didn't use auto-correct, so it's a pretty good match for typing a url, if a little long. That time did include going back through to correct for errors. Comparatively, I've never seen a QR code scan in under a minute, either on my own phone or on one from my friends, family, and coworkers. I could see the glasses thing being a pain.

Running a timer on my desktop, I've just timed pulling my phone from my pocket and scanned a bar code, one handed. Including getting the phone out it took 19 seconds, without any possibility of getting it wrong. And yes, the glasses thing is a pain, one of the disadvantages of getting old. 8-(

19 seconds? I may have to give QR codes another shot.

Re: Dear Marketers: Enough with the QR codes

#59

Post by DavidAdams »

My company went to a trade show recently, and instead of brochures, we made up a little business card with some summary information on the front, and a big QR code on the back. When you scan the QR code, it puts the summary and contact information into your phone as a contact. (It's labeled, so people know that scanning the code will transfer the card's information to their phone's contact list). I think this is pretty darn useful. It's nice to have something physical to hand to someone, but nobody wants to re-key contact info. And we want to make it easy to get the info from the card into their phone. You can use vcard or MECARD format. http://code.google.com/p/zxing/wiki/BarcodeContents

I don't know why more people don't use the scan-to-transfer aspect of QR codes.

Re: Dear Marketers: Enough with the QR codes

#60

Post by ColinWright »

rprospero wrote: post #58
ColinWright wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Running a timer on my desktop, I've just timed pulling my phone from my pocket and scanned a bar code, one handed. Including getting the phone out it took 19 seconds, without any possibility of getting it wrong. And yes, the glasses thing is a pain, one of the disadvantages of getting old. 8-(

19 seconds? I may have to give QR codes another shot.

I just did it again - yes - 19 seconds. This time I was more leisurely, but already had my phone "home page" open. Click on apps, open menu, scan to bottom, up one, click. Point, focus, open.

Start: Mon Jun 18 23:18:19 BST 2012

End: Mon Jun 18 23:18:38 BST 2012

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