Opportunities Found and Lost

To try these codes out on your own phone, text the word "scan" to 70734, or navigate on your phone to getscanlife.com

I'm always excited to find real life uses of codes out in the market place, and anxious to provide advice--usually unsolicited--on how to use them even better.



Take Cellufun, for example. If you navigate to their site from your desktop or laptop (http://www.cellufun.com/), you'll find that this is an excellent wap-oriented site that provides all sorts of free entertaining stuff for your phone--games, screensavers, ringers, etc. Right there on the front page is an EZCode that looks something like the one on the left here.

This is an excellent example of making it very easy for someone to move from one form of media to another using mobile codes. Let's face it: talking about wireless services on the web is kind of like talking about heaven while on earth. It's not really possible. It's just a shadow of what it must really be like. It's much better to go to the discussed medium and actually experience it.

Scan the code listed above, and you get the main menu of cellufun for the wap phone. From there you can navigate and actually experience all the wonderful things cellufun has to offer.


BUT, it could be even better, and Cellufun is missing an opportunity. If you navigate on your desktop to a particular game, you can learn all about the game. I happen to like the venerabl minesweeper and I hyperlinked happily there on my laptop. I was even happier to find that there was a code right there on the minesweeper page to help me make the jump to my mobile. But alas, the disappointment to discover it was the exact same code as the one on the main page. I had navigated to minesweeper and was interested enough in playing it that I scanned the code, but found that it was the exact same code as the one found on the homepage! In other words, I found minesweeper on the wireline, was interested enough to try it out on the wireless, and Cellufun essentially forced me to navigate AGAIN from the homepage on the wireless!

Codes enable a lot of things never before enabled that must be absorbed by code publishers and users alike. Here are a few:

• The codes themselves are essentially free. You can make as many codes as you want to make without incremental cost. Why? Because the supply of codes is limitless! Contrast this with an SMS shortcode, where a limited number of available codes drives intrinsic value to the codes themselves.
• With free codes, the luxury of precision becomes available. Want to measure a specific campaign? Create a specific code! Want to drive people to a particular spot on your wap site? Create a specific code? You really could create hundreds, thousands, and millions of unique codes without too much trouble.

I have no direct connection to Cellufun, but I hope they'll give multiple codes a try. Why not create unique codes for each game, directing users to that unique experience? Save them some time! Show them some respect! Reward them for wanting to try out your services!

Physical World Connection and Precision

In the last post I demonstrated how the Physical World Connection could enable a link between the paper version of the New York Times and the mobile version of the New York Times. But I argued that it would be even better if there were a connection between a specific component of the New York Times and a specific component of the mobile version of the New York Times.

A digression: Navigating a web experience on wireless devices sucks, even on the best phones. Lots of reasons for this, including small and non-querty keyboards, fat fingers on touch-screens, slow networks, small screens to look at, and frankly, poor design. There are steady improvements in all of these areas, but it will be a long time--maybe never--before navigation is really good. So, there is a A LOT of value in reaching the exact spot you want to without too much trouble.

So, why stop with the code on the front page of the New York Times? Why not have a code associated with every editorial item in the newspaper? (We'll get to advertising another time, but it is equally exciting). Remember, there is an infinite number of codes, therefore, incremental cost of each individual code created is negligible.

Take for instance an article today in the New York Times about the bailout of the big 3 auto makers. As I write this, the code presented here is a link to that particular article in the Times. I'm not affiliated with the Times, so I don't know if this link will gradually expire or change, or whatever, but if I were, I would be in a position to maintain this link forever.

With this code I've solved a potentially painful navigation problem, and I've also opened the door to lots of new opportunities. Now that the reader is on the mobile she can comment on what the bailout means to her and her family. The article could be longer or contain a set of links that would not have fit in the physical paper's space constraints. Lots of additional photos could be presented. Options to send the article to friends could be exploited.

At some point I'll talk about how codes can help sustain the whole print media concept. But I'll save that for another day.

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.