Archive for the ‘Social Media’ Category

Over the summer we had a blog that discussed the future of QR Codes. The article that inspired the blog post stated that they would soon be replaced by something called NFC codes. Read the blog here if your interested in learning more.

The article that inspires this blog come from Linked In.  The author, Sean Cummings, believes that the QR code is nothing more than a cheap marketing gimmick and he offers a strong argument why. Granted, there have been some incredibly creative uses of QR codes,  like a QR Code haircut (see below). However, the QR codes used by business have been generally unexciting and bland.

Sean created his own social experiment by holding up a QR code to random people on the street and asking them what it was. Only 11 percent of people correctly identified it as a “QR code” or “Quick Response Code”.  Another 29 percent responded with, “some barcode thingy”. Seven percent claimed it was a Magic Eye 3D picture, and the other 53 percent was made up of various guesses.

So, the fact only 40% of people have any idea of what the square piece of code is, is bad enough. However, when coupled with the fact that it is prevalent enough in advertising today that almost every American has seen it on some type of billboard or other form of media makes that number even more discouraging for QR codes.

However, it doesn’t end there. Out of the forty percent that identified it as a barcode, only 35 percent correctly answered that it can be scanned with a smartphone. Out of that 35 percent, only 45 percent successfully scanned it with there phone and it took an average of 47 seconds.

Interesting, Cummings points out, considering some codes are being put on buses and highway billboards. You don’t have to be head of a marketing firm to understand why that doesn’t make total sense.

Also, if you do that math, that means, out of every 100 people, that’s six that have the knowledge and capability to scan a QR code. And, considering the time and inconvenience it takes to scan a code for, normally, little to no payoff, it’s  doubtful those six people will take the time to scan the code. Granted, Cumming’s survey was incredibly limited in size, nonetheless, I get the feeling his numbers aren’t far off from the real thing.

Though Cummings did not mention it in his article, we felt it would be worth mentioning that QR Codes are being made that install trojans or other malware onto your  computer. Because of the rise in popularity and well as the simplicity of the barcode, many hackers have been putting up malicious codes, sometimes even over other QR codes. If you are a smartphone user and QR Code scanner, just be careful what you scan.

All that being said, here’s a QR code for you to scan. Scan it to go to our Facebook.

What do you think? Are QR codes dead and gone? Or will they just take some more assimilation to get used to? Let us know in the comments.