Every now and then I hope to present some ideas why regular people might want to publish their own barcodes. As a blogger I'm trying to get as many people as possible to read my stuff. Lots of factors go into driving traffic (believe me, I'm not very good at it yet!), but one factor could be to make it really easy for people to read it wherever they are. My original thought was, why not guide people towards the opportunity to read my blog from their cell phone?

The code presented here points to http://mobilebarcodesrock.blogspot.com/, the web address of my blog. Perfect! I could say to readers, "Look, if you want to extend your reading experience to the cellphone, just scan this here code from your computer screen, and immediately the mobile version of my blog will load to your cell phone. You could continue reading something you don't have time to read right now, or even better, you could bookmark this wireless web address on your phone, so that you could conveniently come back from your mobile again and again.

For this to take off even faster, blog hosting companies could enable widgets to appear in margins of blogs so that bloggers could choose to present them. In the meantime, bloggers can create their own by going to www.scanlife.com

The Importance of Ubiquity

Ubiquity is an important consideration when considering a mobile barcode scanning solution. It is important to you, the consumer/user, because when you see a code on a piece of paper you want to be able to know that your phone can interpret it. It is important to the person or company putting the code out there because they want the confidence that their intended audience can interpret the code.

Ubiquity is a tricky beast because not all phones are alike. Some iconic phones, like the Apple iPhone for instance, can do some amazingly nifty things that most other phones can't. It needs applications--maybe even for barcodes--that can take advantage of its special capabilities. But when it comes to reach, it only accesses a small portion of the overall audience.

A solution that works "well enough" on as many phones as possible is vastly preferable. Take text messaging for instance. You need a data-capable phone, but this is a large and increasing number of handsets in the market. It is valuable mainly because you can assume your buddy can read the message you send, no matter what kind of phone and phone network it runs.
So as you choose to publish a code--whether you are an individual or a company--it's important to understand specifically how many handsets in your target audience codescanning works for. And you should also understand the definition of "works." Some companies will try to deceive you in this category.

Where will the Big Bang Come From?

A lot of people think there needs to be a big bang to mobile barcode scanning going in the United States. When pressed, they say it will require large investments by a lot of companies.
This may be true, but where will such investment come from, and what will be the nature of the investement? I think there are a good number of companies making investments in mobile barcode scanning infrastructure. This includes development of codescanning readers, code creation interfaces, standards development, and so on. Although there is a lot of squabbling among them, this area seems to be coming along.

The concern seems to come from the lack of investment from phone companies. In Japan the phone companies invested in making handset readers on lots of phones, and then invested in consumer education. In the US I believe that phone companies will make the readers available widely, but they may not actively market the capability.

Concern also seems to come from lack of investment from brands. More brands (like Ralph Lauren, see http://about.ralphlauren.com/mobile/?camp=AVEA_Search_Google_BroadRLBrandMobile) could take an active role in education, and then use mobile barcodes in their campaigns. Unfortunately most brands are less intrepid, and will probably choose to wait until codescanning is well established. But when will that be?
The old reliable "last resort" is viral marketing. What can be done to convince consumers--especially kids, let's admit it--to think of codes as cool? I'm going to try and explore some ideas over the coming few posts and solicit some feedback. I welcome your ideas...

By the way, did you figure out that the code in the previous post was a link to ESPN's mobile website? Links to mobile content could be a good way to use mobile barcodes.

How to Get Started

Okay, I'm going to alienate some of you right now by recommending the Scanbuy reader. Other readers may be technically superior and other readers have some whiz-bang features. Remember, I'm US-centric here, and I want to be democratic. The Scanbuy reader works on more phones than other readers in the US. The big reason for this is that Scanbuy is getting the carriers involved. In the US carriers can prevent readers from working on a lot of phones. Scanbuy is working with the telecommunications carriers to work in as many places and on as many phones as possible.

I'm not saying this will alway be true, but it is definitely true right now. My goal is to get people comfortable using mobile barcodes right now. We'll let time take care of itself.
I'll probably venture to discuss other readers and technologies and capabilities from time to time and try to be fair about them. But just keep in mind: US-Centric, and Democratic.
If you want to scan codes, you need codescanning software. Some will say you don't need software on your handset--and they would be right--but the experience without the software is vastly inferior to the experience of handset based solutions.

To get the software for your phone, send a text message to "70734" with the word "scan" in the body. You can also point your phone's browser to "getscanlife.com." My experience is that the process to download the software from this point on is pretty straight forward.

If you aren't used to using applications on your phone, it's sometimes hard to find it. A lot of times it is under a category called "applications," or "my stuff" or something like that. In the list of presented logos you are probably looking for an image that looks a little bit like this symbol below.

Once you've finished the process, try this code out with your newly downloaded reader!

The Barcode Reading Experience

I'm hoping this will end up being a place for people to experience barcode scanning. As such, I'll try to walk people through doing it. I apologize in advance because I will have a particularly American bias. I'll also have a particularly democratic bias. The experiences I convey will focus on what is possible on as many phones as possible. I'll rely on your feedback to understand how the experience works on your phone and your network.

Consumer Barcode Scanning is Coming of Age

This blog is about mobile barcode scanning for consumers. I happen to be an American and the whole idea is pretty new to us. More and more of us are becoming aware that this phenomenon has been going for years in Japan and for a lesser time in Europe. There are some good things and some bad things about both of those. I'm going to try and get you to comment on them all and have a meaningful dialogue.