**This post is courtesy of Ben Tannenbaum from MX Telecom.
Mobile barcodes are experiencing a rise in visibility as of late. 57 percent of respondents to a recent Mobile Trends survey believe that mobile coupons and campaigns involving 2D barcodes will generate sales in 2010. There are all sorts of examples of mobile barcodes in the news, including JAGTAG for Sports Illustrated and ScanBuy for Esquire.
At the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Neustar announced the first clearinghouse for barcodes, which allows barcodes from any advertiser or brand to be linked to web content independently of the barcode reader or service provider being used.
Great, but what exactly are they?
We’re all familiar with 1D (or linear) barcodes like the one above. You’ve seen them scanned at the supermarket checkout. They comprise a sequence of vertical black lines and white spaces of variable width, representing numbers. They are decoded by a reader to extract the information they contain. One problem is that the amount of data which a 1D barcode can carry is quite limited.
Fast-forward to 2D (or matrix) barcodes, like the one above, which are more robust and can hold a much higher density of information. They are formed by patterns of black and white squares, usually arranged on a square grid, and can encode thousands of alphanumeric and other characters.
Barcodes can be printed on product packaging, print advertising, and even posters. Many mobile phones can also display a barcode, allowing a reader to identify it. Phones can now be enabled to read a variety of 2D mobile barcodes, such as QR codes (currently the most popular type of two dimensional codes in Japan). The combination of camera phones and MMS allow users to transmit images via Short Code for decoding by the service provider, usually triggering a response.
Some of the most common uses of mobile barcodes are to request information, a service, or content from a Web site. It might be details of a promotion, or a discount voucher via SMS or MMS, or to activate a download of content (such as a video).
There are many types of 2D mobile barcodes. Some are in the public domain, meaning that they can be used by anyone without restriction or payment. Other developers have chosen to create proprietary bar codes that they alone control. One perceived benefit of public codes is that they promote recognized standards and interoperability. We’ll have to see how the Neustar’s barcode clearinghouse influences this effort.
-Ben Tannenbaum is the Communications Manager for MX Telecom and is really excited about the potential of mobile barcodes! Follow Ben on Twitter.
This is a really informative article about mobile barcodes. Retailers that are interested in expanding their reach to mobile consumers, should consider implementing mobile barcodes. More importantly, all mobile marketers should look at the various ways of implementing mobile barcodes into their CTAs and take advantage of this growing trend.