QR codes can provide so much more information than the traditional barcodes that have been used for years. The issue occurring with barcodes was that they could not contain too much information as the demand of the increasing amount of data and information stored in barcodes. Fortunately, QR codes came out and solved this issue. So you might wonder what a QR code really is right? It basically consists of square dots which are arranged in a white background square grid. It can be read by any QR scan device such as smart phones with QR reader applications. When we scan a QR code on any poster that we see, we'll be taken to the website of the company providing that poster. In other words, QR code scanners will decode the URLs encoded in QR codes. Nowadays, manufacturers and companies can easily store more information in QR codes.
Above are three QR codes that I just generated. Each one of them provides different information. If you have a smart phone with QR code scanner application, check them out. I hope you will see how powerful QR codes are, and how much information they can provide. We all live in a digital world where technology has been growing rapidly with the goal of better-suiting human needs. A lot of companies are using QR codes to build relationships with customers (customers can complete survey about companies' products quickly at anywhere and at anytime), to offer customers with promotions (place QR codes at good locations so people can check them out), and to advertise their products and services. According to a statistics in 2011, there were 14 million smartphone users in the U.S scanned a QR code (Pozin, 2012). Just looking at the big number of people scanning QR codes, in my point of view, there might be a lot more that companies can benefit from QR codes. Therefore, it is a great opportunity for people and companies to take advantage of such a great invention by Toyota.
Work Cited
Pozin, Ilya. "Are QR Codes Dead?" Forbes.com LLC, March 08, 2012. Web. 09/13/2013. http://www.forbes.com/sites/ilyapozin/2012/03/08/are-qr-codes-dead/
I don't know much about QR codes, even though I wrote a blog about them. I think QR codes are not very popular because they are not very beneficial to consumers. People simply are not going to go out of their way to be advertised or to look up information. Maybe that can change in the future, maybe not, but for now, American society is too lazy to make use of QR codes, or maybe I just misunderstand what they are.
ReplyDeleteI would say this was a big step for new technology to create this 2D barcodes to contain a lot of data in them. But, even though there are many people know how to use QR codes, but it seems like it does not hit to its top yet because there are still a lot of people do not use or have smartphones. There are some companies or organizations that provide their services or educate people using QR codes. For example, airlines companies provide their QR codes for boarding pass; and an Italian HIV awareness charity Sieropositivo put its QR code on toilet paper rolls and the QR code link to a HIV education website. These are very interesting and remarkable used of this technology. It has a captive audience.
ReplyDelete