Thursday 19 April 2012

Q is for QR Codes


They are appearing in more and more places, these little square graphics that look like a random maze for your pet ants.

QR codes are a way of sharing information quickly and easily,  I have seen them on posters, the back of buses and in magazines.



QR stands for Quick Response code and is a form of bar code. Originally used as a bar code that could hold more information than the traditional lines. They were developed to identify bins of components within the automotive manufacturing industry.
More recently QR codes have become a marketing tool, so you don't have to memorise a web URL you see on an advertisement.
With the aid of an application on your smartphone, you can scan the image below with your phone / iPad camera and it will instantly take you to my blog. How cool is that. I have seen QR codes as email footers and on websites. But I had a thought, why would you put a QR code on your website to allow people to get to your website ??


Perhaps you are showing someone my blog and they say "Hey, you will have to send me a link to that" No you don't ! Tell them to whip out their smartphone and use their QR reader app to get their own link.

Its a great marketing tool to move people from paper advertisements to an on-line site. Magazines also use them to provide additional web based information to supplement the printed text. But I am not sure they have much use for bloggers?

So have you got a QR reader on your phone and do you use it ?



QR code generated HERE
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