Everywhere I park, people keep asking me about the Chevy Volt. Now, the most often asked question of “how exactly does it work?” can be answered by the car, a QR code and your smartphone. Read more »
Simon & Schuster is adding QR codes to the back jackets of all its hardcover and trade paperback titles starting this fall. The publisher hopes to use the the codes to build direct-to-consumer relationships, but will readers actually scan them? Read more at paidContent »
Wine sellers are sticking QR codes on bottles to help customers learn about unusual European wines and suggest food pairings. QR codes aren’t very popular in the U.S., but I like the idea of using tech to make food shopping and entree selection easier. Read more »
Planning a trip to Wales anytime soon? If so, put the town of Monmouth on your itinerary and be sure to bring your phone. On May 19, Monmouth officially becomes the world’s first Wikipedia Town and you’ll need your handset with you for the full tour. Read more »
The recruiting ecosystem is changing, led by professional social networks like LinkedIn and Viadeo and companies like Jobvite and BranchOut, which are building Facebook apps for hiring and career development. The bottom line is that technology enables the recruiting process to be more streamlined, scientific and democratic. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Ever since the smartphone era began, companies have looked for ways to quickly get information from the offline product world onto the phone. Barcode scanning and QR codes work, but what if we could just use a printed solution readable by our phone’s touchscreen? Read more »
LevelUp, a loyalty program that built its own Starbucks-style payment system, is now doing $1 million in transactions a month. It’s growing by marrying payments with loyalty and deals. And it’s showing that there will be more payment options that Google Wallet and Isis. Read more »
Mobile deals combine location-aware discounts with mobile marketing campaigns. What are the largest pitfalls in this promising space, though? Privacy and security issues must be addressed to assure consumers their purchases are secure and their location is being closely guarded. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
With new products from a variety of players like Google and Isis comes a potentially confusing year as the term “mobile wallet” gets thrown around repeatedly. What exactly is the “mobile wallet”? Here are some important definitions for those looking to make a move in the space. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Tech enthusiasts and mobile marketers are already celebrating the “death of QR codes,” which have long failed to live up to the hype. But for advertisers who understand how to use them effectively, QR codes can be a powerful ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Social Passport is leveraging NFC and QR codes to create a social loyalty tool that enables consumers to socially interact with merchants and retailers in the real world, helping them check in, like, follow or tweet about their experiences, sometimes in exchange for a discount. Read more »
QR codes, those tiny 2D codes are big on is hype, with proponents touting them as the bridge between the offline and online world. But that offline to online bridge is structurally flawed and may be keeping many brands from reaching their audience effectively. Read more »
MasterCard showed off a handful of projects Thursday that highlighted how it can leverage mobile phones to encourage shopping using a variety of technologies, from QR codes and NFC to audio signals and also motion control. The technology could be out on the market in months. Read more »
Mobile payments — payments initiated by a phone for a transaction at a physical point of sale or online — will total over $750 billion worldwide by 2015, and many predict they will soon begin to replace a typical credit card transaction. This report analyzes and forecasts the mobile payments industry, from its current technologies to the companies implementing them and the trends we can expect in the coming months. Much of the near-term growth of mobile payments will be driven by near-field communication (NFC) technology, but QR and 2D bar codes, mobile POS systems and SMS transactions are also important platforms for companies to consider when creating business models and strategies. Meanwhile, services from the likes of MasterCard, Nokia, Amazon and Google offer examples for others to follow and clues into the future of the industry. Additional companies mentioned in this report include Research in Motion, T-Mobile, Zong and Groupon. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
When Google discontinued support for QR codes in its Places product earlier this year, many saw it as an early death knell for the barcode scanning technology. But Google’s latest acquisition is evidence that the company may not be completely abandoning QR technology just yet. Read more »
Startups in the long-simmering QR code market are hoping that the change in season, along with what they say is a “critical mass” of smart phones, will finally bring QR codes, barcodes that lead to URLs or information when scanned, into the mainstream. Read more »
Mobile marketing is an emerging industry with tremendous opportunity, but it also is a space teeming with potential pitfalls. Here are some of the key mistakes to avoid for advertisers attempting to target users on their phones. Read more »
QR code innovator Paperlinks has announced a new landing page offering called Paperlinks for Business. The new product lets businesses create printed goods with a custom QR code that will lead people to a mobile-friendly website created in the Paperlinks app. Read more »
There’s a good chance that NFC is soon to take the place of QR codes for any business looking to make the connection between their efforts in the real world and online more tightly integrated. For those working on distributed teams, NFC has countless potential applications. Read more »
Creating and using QR codes is so easy, it struck me that they could also be useful for enterprise deployment, especially if your office still uses paper for some communication purposes. Here are some sample applications of the kinds of implementations that I’m now using. Read more »
QR codes are still waiting for their break-out moment. But the 2D barcodes, which trigger URLs or information when scanned, continue to gather quiet momentum that could finally tap into the potential of the technology. Here’s a look at some of the latest developments. Read more »
Google last week began taking on Yelp, Urban Spoon and other crowdsourcing-based offerings that deliver information about local businesses and points of interest. And the move is about to give QR, or quick response, codes — those odd-looking mobile barcodes that resemble a kind of tiled ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
