QR codes: It's all about the destination

QR codes -- those intricate square graphics -- are showing up on signs, posters, print ads, business cards. They’ve even been painted on sides of buildings. When scanned by your smart phone, QR codes are supposed to take you to something more – more information, music, video. But not every QR code yields a good experience. Expert Ruth McCartney was in town recently to speak at MSIM classes and meet with local professionals to share what she’s learned about using this technology well.

QR codes -- those intricate square graphics -- are showing up on signs, posters, print ads, business cards. They have even been painted on sides of buildings. "QR codes are simple pointers to other content," said Julie Smith David, associate professor of information systems and director of the Center for Advancing Business through Information Technology (CABIT). "They allow users to access content through their camera-ready mobile devices to make content retrieval easier -- and they make all types of content (video, audio, web sites, etc.) available through this simple process." For example, the QR code we're using as our illustration points to the Wikipedia English language site.

The accelerant to QR code proliferation, of course, is the explosion of smart phones in the market. "People rely on their phones, and QR codes leverage this," David said, "but I think the beauty is that multimedia content-rich content -- available where/when users want it."

The codes also allow companies to capture information about the devices capturing their codes, David said, yielding information about customer behavior. And, lLike any other technology, QR codes are valuable because they enable or improve a business process. Recently CABIT hosted a visit by Ruth McCartney, CEO of McCartneyMultimedia.com, co-founder of fan management software company iFanz.com and president of ConnectCode.mobi. McCartney's company has developed a solution for QR code implementations. She spoke at Master of Science in Information Systems (MSIM) classes, and met with a group of Phoenix-area IS professionals. Later, knowIT caught up with McCartney to explore the issues surrounding effective QR code implementations.

The next big thing?

KnowIT: Will QR codes be one of the next big things for 2012?

McCartney: I think they were the big thing in 2011, and they’re only going to get bigger in 2012. In the month of June last year, 14 million people scanned QR codes, and the rate of scanning as reported by app makers is going up by 800 percent a month.

KnowIT: What was the genesis of this technology?

McCartney: QR was invented by the Denso Wave Corporation in Japan to track parts. They had so many parts and OEM manufacturers that the existing barcodes couldn’t hold enough information. So they stacked one barcode vertically and one horizontally and created a two-dimensional barcode that could hold much more data -- it became a quick response code, which we know now as QR. At the time you had to have a sophisticated scanner to be able to actually read these codes, but eventually, software developers started creating hybrid apps that combined cameras and barcode scanners. Now anyone can download any one of about 50 free apps that read these 2-D barcodes -- aka QR codes.

U.S. adoption of QR codes

KnowIT: QR codes have been used extensively in other parts of the world for several years – in Canada, China -- but they’re just beginning to proliferate in the U.S. Do you think that the adoption here is going to be different than it was in those other countries?

McCartney: America always seems to be three and four years behind the rest of the world on the mobile front -- whether it’s texting or what have you. I don’t know why that is except to say that our culture has always been driven by the desktop PC. Now, I think that everybody realizes how convenient it is to be able to walk around with a computer in your pocket, hence smart phone.

KnowIT: In the case of China, they skipped over the landline phase, so when QR codes came around many people had the smart phone they needed to read them.

McCartney: Yes -- and in Japan, personal space is an issue, so they have a computer at work, and they don’t have enough room in their tiny apartments to have another one at home. Korea offers an interesting example of QR code use. Tesco, the British grocery store, was trying to take on Seoul’s the most popular grocery chain. They did a study of Korean shopping habits: How many times a week do they shop for groceries? The answer was seven, because their homes don’t have a lot of storage room, and they don’t have cars, so they have to shop every day.So Tesco created something that looks like a convenience store at subway stops and elsewhere. It’s so realistic that it looks like you could pick the orange juice or the milk or the bread or the bananas off the shelf. Each product has a QR code beside it. You scan that. You type in your account number and by the time you get home, your groceries are delivered. We’re working with a museum in Italy at the moment to create 50 codes that open up brief talks about the providence of the pieces that they’re displaying. It’s absolutely endless when you think about it.

KnowIT: You could have a QR enhanced business card!

McCartney: Absolutely -- I have a ConnectCode on the back of my card. If I decide to change my fax number tomorrow, I don’t need to reprint my cards. I just log into my system, change it, hit save and the next time somebody scans it, they have my new fax number.

KnowIT: What demographic of cell phone users are really comfortable with this right now?

McCartney: Here's a story for you: We’ve got ConnectCodes in our front window at our office, and a school field trip bus pulled up the other day. They were taking a bunch of kids to the beach, and I’d say they probably had to be between 9 and 12 maybe.

They all jumped off the school bus and a good 60 percent of them pulled out their phones and scanned them. They knew what to do. I would say that once people will hit about 60-63-65, somewhere in there, there’s kind of a disconnect with them. They don’t know what they are, and they don’t know why they should care, but once you show them, and you show them that it could unlock a family gallery of pictures of their grandchildren or whatever, they’re all over it. The other thing too is that as of February 1, all the handsets that come off the new production lines -- whether it be T-Mobile, AT&T whatever -- will come with a 2-D barcode reader on deck.

Imperfect Implementations

KnowIT: I’ve scanned QR codes with my phone, but sometimes the information retrieved is just too hard to read.

McCartney: I took a look at this about a year and a half ago. What most people have been doing is using the QR codes to link to websites, which is a fatal mistake. The Worldwide Web is called the Worldwide Web because it’s wider than it is long. Picture a computer screen – about 800 pixels wide, depending upon your browser setting. But a cell phone screen is 320 pixels wide.The QR industry is an exciting, burgeoning world, but a lot of the big ad agencies and a lot of mom-and-pop businesses alike haven’t realized that simple difference yet.

In addition, the worldwide web and cell phones have little to do with each other when it comes to coding. The web is built on HTML and the mobile web is built on something called View-Port code. So when a QR code takes you to a web site, the results are probably not what you expected, or what the developer intended for you to see. It’s like ordering the chicken, but they bring you the fish and try and slide it by you: “chicken, fish -- same thing.”

KnowIT: So it’s essential to build the destination – the place the QR code takes me to – in a format that’s easy for me to use on my mobile device.

McCartney: That’s my battle cry. Our mission at ConnectCode.mobi is to be able to help companies or people that have had a bad QR experience in the past -- either developing one or scanning one. For example, a business may have tried to link to Flash® that doesn’t work, or an animation that doesn’t play, or plug-ins that are missing.

KnowIT: You mentioned some notable QR code failures. What would you say are the top mistakes that companies use when they try to use QR technology?

McCartney: My favorite one of all times so far is Continental Airlines, which put a QR code in their inflight magazine. People who were at 30,000 feet moving at 600 miles an hour and aren’t allowed to have those cell phones turned on, and who aren’t supposed to take the inflight magazine with them, are supposed to scan the code and check their mileage credits. There are people who have created QR codes as an integral part of the background artwork of a music video -- but the camera moves by it so quickly that you can’t scan it. Another example -- instead of embedding the code on a layer within the video so that somebody could hit pause and scan it, they painted it on a wall that some guy whips by on a skateboard, so fast you hardly see the thing.

The ConnectCode solution

KnowIT: That’s certainly ineffective execution! I understand that your company has developed a technology that enables a person or company to avoid these mistakes. Tell us about it.

McCartney: We thought, how can we create a system with a back office that guarantees no matter what you put into it, you cannot fail? By creating ConnectCode Media, we’ve guaranteed that the QR experience is absolutely fool proof on the user end, because the client is developing it using our building and back office system -- our custom application system.

The content accessed is meant to be displayed in the mobile arena, and it’s agnostic to the web. Clients build the content they need within the ConnectCode system. Let’s say the client is a real estate agent. He simply logs in and fills out a form -- basically he’s building a mobile app that lives in the cloud. We issue the ConnectCode to go with it. Then the real estate agent can put that code on signs, fliers, you know -- it can be anywhere. When someone scans the code, our system knows if it’s dealing with an Android, an iPhone 3, an iPhone 4 or Blackberry, and it delivers the exact right sized, right code-type of experience.

So the beauty of it for the real estate agent is that if a price changes, an auction date changes, or they decide to do an open house, the realtor or the real estate agent can login, make that change, and the very next time somebody walks by the sign or scans the newspaper ad, they get the latest and greatest information. The app is updated all the time in the cloud, and it’s the ConnectCode that unlocks that information. The ConnectCode is simply a key to unlock a mobile experience. Anything you can do on the Internet, within reason, you can also translate to the mobile Internet. I like to call them cloud apps because basically, an app lives in the app store or the Android market. With these QR codes, with our ConnectCodes, you can unlock an app that lives in the cloud that can do anything any other app can do, but it’s updatable real time.

KnowIT: How about an example?

McCartney: We just developed a mobile giving app for the Clinton Foundation. They were having a huge concert at the Hollywood Bowl, and of course they wanted to drive donations. Well, people sitting in their seats at the Hollywood Bowl, outside, covered with a blanket – those people will have a cell phone with them, but they’re not going to have Wi-Fi and a laptop so they can go to the donations page on the Clinton Foundation website. They’re going to go home and just forget about it. We created a secure mobile giving app where people could either donate securely directly on the Clinton shopping cart server from the sky, or they could login and use their PayPal account to make a donation.

We sprinkled the ConnectCodes on huge banners and signs all around the Hollywood Bowl, and as people were waiting for their car, or going through security, or waiting in line for the bathroom, or getting a beer, they could hold up their phones and bingo – “I wonder what that is. Hey! Donate now!”

KnowIT: So you wouldn’t even necessarily have to print it on a program.

McCartney: Oh no, a digital billboard is fine. You could paint it on a roof. You could -- oh gosh, literally paint it on the side of a building. People have had them made into temporary tattoos. People have put them on bumper stickers. For my mother’s little organic tea company, Mrs. McCartney’s Teas, we have a ConnectCode on her packaging that takes you to the latest and greatest. She’s 82, and she is able to log into our system, into her app, then update her pictures or add a flavor or update the charitable donations they’re doing this month. Calling it a cloud based app is probably the closest thing that I can think of to describe our system.

KnowIT: I understand you've developed a custom ConnectCode system for RE/MAX. Would you like to describe it?

McCartney: Sure. We developed a solution on our website where RE/MAX members can create a free account by filling in their name, address, designation, email and telephone number. The system generates a free code that they can print on their business cards or wherever they want. If agents subscribe to a paid plan, they can add listings, including pricing, school information, square footage, homeowner’s association fees -- there are about 37 different fields. Hit save and the system generates a code for that property that you can print out on stickers, signs, flyers or in newspapers, magazine ads -- wherever you happen to be doing your general marketing. Here’s the good news, if you sell that property there’s no reason that you have to redo your sign.

All you have to do is log back in, put in your new property that you’re representing, move your sign over to the front lawn of the new property, plunk it down and the next time somebody scans it, the new property information will come up. Our system can also generate a Google map and a lead generation form with a spam blocker.

We’ve also got a social media sharing widget, so that if I see a sign with a ConnectCode , I scan it and I can share it to my Facebook wall, my Twitter feed, my Linked In and 350 other places to see what my friends think about the property.

KnowIT: Interesting.

McCartney: We also have analytics so we can tell you how many times each property has been scanned and from where in the world, etc.

KnowIT: Thank you so much for talking with us!

McCartney: My pleasure.

Learn more:

iFanz.com McCartneyMultimedia.com ConnectCode.mobi 'Digital Diva' Helps the Famous and the Fans Come Together over the Internet