2D codes already work! Just check out Japan
Written on February 12, 2008 – 12:30 am
Mike Sheetal, Next Web WebTipr in Japan
If you came here from Digg it would be great if you could actually Digg us too! Do you have a start-up that we should write about? Contact us! Thanks for visiting and hope you come back again!
Yesterday Ernst-Jan Pfauth wrote a story about the use of 2D barcodes as shortcuts to mobile web sites. What a lot of people in Europe don’t realize is that 2D barcodes are already a success story, … just not in Europe.
In Japan a local version of the 2D barcode called QR Codes (Quick Response Codes) has widespread acceptance and a very large user base. All handsets released on the Japanese market these days (and actually for the last several years) have been preloaded with a QR code reader. This makes the QRcodes available to pretty much everyone with a standard handset. The numbers are somewhere around 90-95 million people out of 100 million mobile subscribers. That is a pretty large potential audience for the technology.
[ UPDATE: previously I used some old research data for some of the numbers. The reality now is actually a much better percentage and I have changed the numbers below accordingly based on a 2007 study]
In Japan about 80% 95% of people know what a QRcode does and just over 50% of people in Japan 93% of those people have used them. That may not sound like a screaming majority That is a pretty good majority, but and in terms of certain youth markets, that covers an almost complete coverage and puts the technology in a position where it can be a seamless part of any ad campaign already…. and actually it is already a part of just about every ad campaign.
A standard fashion magazine in Japan will be filled with codes with direct links to the mobile shopping page for the product depicted or an mobile competition form to fill out. The also are found on business cards as a short cut to add someones details to your address book. You can search popular coupon magazine, Hot Pepper, for QR codes you can scan and then show the resulting mobile web site page at restaurant to receive a discount. The system is everywhere and highly successful.
There is even one famous blog that is made entirely of QR code messages.
What many don’t realize is that 2D barcodes have not necessarily been a failure so far because it is a flawed technology, but because the supporting technology (the handset) was not up to scratch and the user base was too small. The biggest difference between Japanese mobile handsets and the European handsets over the past few years has been the camera support and the resolution of those cameras in macro mode. A phone in Europe with a camera is still considered a “camera phone”, whereas in Japan it would be highly unusual to have a phone without a camera as standard sold to you any time in the last 5 years. I have lived in Japan for 6 years now and have never had a phone without a camera and have never had a phone without a QRcode reader.
More recently it seems Windows Live is getting on the QRcode bandwagon (although their official beta page for barcodes seems to have gone offline).
Some of the benefits of QR Codes over other 2D Code systems are the ability to self correct if up to 30% of the code is damaged or otherwise illegible, the ability to use more than the standard alpha-numeric characters (in Japan the JIS character support allows Japanese characters to be encoded) and the ability to read the code from any orientation due to the registration marks that let a reader self correct. The code was invented and the patent is owned by a company called Denso-wave back in 1994, but they are choosing not to exercise their patent rights which means everyone is free to use and make QRCodes as they wish.
On a related note, on a recent trip to London I noticed QR codes on some posters for a Pet Shop Boys album. After getting over my excitement that Europe had finally come t the party I tried out scanning the codes with my Japanese phone, only to be disappointed to find that the content was PC website URLs and nothing made for mobile at all. Such a disappointment, although I daresay the publicity should help the recognition of the code format in Europe a considerable amount.
Email
Twitter
Facebook
Netlog
Linkedin
The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show of, the future of the Web. (
13 Responses to “2D codes already work! Just check out Japan”
By Andie Nordgren on Feb 12, 2008 | Reply
2D barcodes are not very well known in Sweden, but they were used as a big part of a pervasive game connected to a drama series on Swedish public service television in the fall 2007. The show was called “The Truth About Marika” and a mysterious secret society communicated with the players of the pervasive game by leaving trails of datamatrix codes. Here are some links to the official tv website, to some in-game information in english and some videos where the codes are very visible. The game ended November 2007.
Public service tv website (swedish only, some datamatrix patterns visible)
http://svt.se/marika
Background information in English:
http://www.conspirare.se/blog/?page_id=388
More info on the clue trail of datamatrix codes in English:
http://www.conspirare.se/blog/?page_id=386
Trailer for the tv-series and game:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lXSJAaIw8c
Big semacode flags are waved at the Arvika alternative music festival:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jj8THnxcHus
Sorry for all the links, but there is not much information in english and these links give some sort of project overview and show how the 2D barcodes were used.
A lot of people had never seen this kind of symbol before, and the project helped raise the awareness of what 2D barcodes are and how they can be used for the people who played the game.
/Andie
By Roger on Feb 12, 2008 | Reply
Mike -
Agree a 100% with your post and QR codes are well on their way to the Western world!
You and your readers may well be interested in an online magazine I edit on this subject which can be found here http://2d-code.co.uk
Mike if you come across any more interesting applications please let me know!
- Roger
By Rindy on Feb 12, 2008 | Reply
2D code is popular in China, too.
——————–
http://www.noteflag.com — A simple web bookmarking between PC and Mobile Phone
By Steven Carroll on Feb 12, 2008 | Reply
Japan is like an alien world with its own technology. I’m amazed it is so far advanced and why the west generally goes without many of the gadgets available there.
By Joop on Feb 12, 2008 | Reply
Don’t forget about Korea. Samsung invests tremendously in 2dcodes. Check this noodles that I consumed recently: http://www.flickr.com/photos/j.....005815215/
By Mike Sheetal on Feb 12, 2008 | Reply
Korea also boasts a misguided 2D barcode technology called Color Code from ColorZip (http://www.colorzip.co.jp/en/index.html). While it looks great it is flawed in several ways … it is not clearly recognizable in many of its forms (because of the artistic interpretation allowed), it needs to be processed through ColorZip servers before sending you to the registered URL, it is not installed on mobile phones as standard and it is not free.
By Dean Collins on Feb 13, 2008 | Reply
I’ve been trying to push QR codes here in the USA for the last year.
Lots of ‘discussions’ but little in the way of progress - though it seems everyone has finally ‘woken up’ in the last few months.
Check out http://www.collins.net.pr/blog or http://www.cognation.net/profile if you are in the USA and would like someone local to assist you by providing consulting advice in implementing this technology into your marketing campaigns.
Regards,
Dean Collins
http://www.Cognation.net
By Tim van de Rijdt on Feb 13, 2008 | Reply
Problem with the phones in Europe is: not all of them can use the readers that are available.
Anyone have the solution to using QR codes on a Blackberry 8100 Pearl?
I would very much like to set up some QR gaming stuff at http://www.qrgamer.com, but can’t scan the codes yet myself :D
By Marc Fonteijn on Feb 14, 2008 | Reply
My experience is thats it really hard to get the companies from influential industries to get on the QR Code bandwagon. Last year I organized an open QR Codes workshop with the very practical goal to get things moving but the real key players (publishers, teleco’s, content producers) weren’t in the crowd. I had the hope an alliance would help the adoption of QR Codes but more and more I see that it really needs to come from the crowd.
By the way, I’m looking for a third party that wants to co-participate (and has a small budget to spare) in a Dutch master research on QR Codes. Drop me a line if you’re interested.
By Alberto on Mar 19, 2008 | Reply
We are an European start-up working with QR and DM for several projects!
http://www.tagmore.com