Practical use of QR codes
Popular and widespread in Japan, QR codes (a variant of the well-known bar-codes) certainly provide many opportunities.
The QR code was invented by Denso Wave, Inc of Japan in 1994. They appear on many product packaging in addition to “normal” bar-codes for shipment tracking and other purposes. When scanned, these codes can return numbers and text (e.g. the URL to this blogpost in the example image). The camera on your mobile phone and dedicated scanning software do the rest of the magic.
While their ability to be a link between the “online” and “offline” world can provide many opportunities, it hasn’t really become the hype it could be outside of Japan. Practical implementations are rare. Most likely because of the lack of knowledge by the broad public. Although QR reader software is freely available and a July ’09 research by the University of Essex stated that 68% of UK phone owners can install such an application, most have not.
The biggest difference between the numerous free QR readers (for about any phone brand/model) may be the image quality needed to recognize a code. I’m happy with the speed of NeoReader but there are also Kaywa Reader and QuickMark barcode reader (among others).
Besides WordPress plug-ins and support in the Google Charts API, there is a PHP library but support in the Zend Framework could stimulate its use even more (Zend_Gdata_Chart anyone)?
Some more implementations:
- Facebook Add to Friends.
- Viral advertising campaigns.
- Share contact information.
- TV to website link (Dutch).
- … any other examples? Please share them in the comments.
One useful tip is to shorten URLs through one of the many URL shortening services there are. This generates a smaller, less prominent QR code.
Tags: php, qr code, zend framework
