Commentary
Are QR Codes Already History?
- by Mark Walsh @markfwal, August 20, 2013
With Microsoft announcing plans Monday to shut down its Tag technology by 2015, it cast further skepticism around the future of QR codes and other mobile activation platforms like augmented reality and image recognition. Taking up the topic in a panel at the Mobile Insider Summit, executives from QR code vendors like Scanbuy and Blippar acknowledged codes have often failed to deliver a good user experience.
Scanbuy CEO Mike Wehrs, whose company acquired the licensing rights to Tag, said QR codes, especially early on, only linked to a Web site instead of providing compelling content within the technology itself. “A lot of the experiences have been crap,” chimed in Patrick Aluise, VP, head of media, at Blippar. He said codes, or image recognition technology like Blippar’s are just triggering devices for whatever a brand is delivering.
As media companies and brands improve those experiences, he’s confident that consumers will come back to codes. But fellow panelist David Wachs, SVP, Mobile, ePrize, remained pessimistic. He criticized QR codes’ lack of virality and cumbersome design, saying it’s easier to simply type in a mobile URL than access a code.
For his part, Wehrs suggested Scanbuy isn’t giving up on Tag, calling the pick-up of rights to the technology from Microsoft “a very big deal with us.” Along with its own EZCodes, he said Tag was the only other remaining proprietary format in the market. Whether Scanbuy can give Tag new life, though, remains to be seen. Wehrs told Mobile Insider Steve Smith this week Scabbuy will upgrade Tag with features found in its other codes.
Mark Walsh can be reached at walsh@mediapost.com
Please tell me that the guys who thought of QR Codes are the same guys who came up with the Cue Cat.
@Darrin Stephens. The QR code was invented by Denso Wave which is a subsidiary of Toyota. It was developed for the purpose of inventory tracking which is what it's really excellent at (and more less how Starbucks uses it: each user is assigned a unique code for the purpose of payment). It's a machine to machine language not really intended for the way it's used today. If the companies that support QR/2d codes would get together and create industry standards around what platform and how it's used it might have a chance of surviving. This would mean getting a native reader installed on every phone and make it so you don't have to open the camera or take a picture but merely point your phone at the 2D code. Unfortunately, based on Scanbuy's actions to pick up the licensing of Tag it appears they don't have this strategy. Instead they want to keep the water murky with no standards and too many options. So in the end 2D codes will continue to be a Unicorn of marketing. Not unlike the Cue Cat you mentioned...
@Gene Keenan. Wow, good learning