Monday, April 25, 2011

QR Codes - Have you seen them?

After reading Jeff Utecht's blog on QR codes at the end of last year I somehow became more acutely aware of these symbols appearing in my surroundings. I think that his prediction that 2011 will be the year of the QR code is right on the money - these things are popping up everywhere:


After encountering the one in the picture above at my local pharmacy, I spoke with my students about the codes and told them to expect to see a lot more of them in the near future. The next day I had two students present QR codes to me:
Encountering the codes on three very different products in a matter of days has assured me that these things are here to stay and will become a valuable marketing tool in today's world of informed consumerism.

Jeff's blog post has some very good information on how to get started with QR codes.

After you have installed a QR scanner on your phone you can try it out with the code below:

Google URL Shortener automatically generates a QR code for the long URL that you are shortening.  A very quick and easy way to generate your own codes.