Although they’ve been declared dead time and time again, QR codes are in the midst of a small renaissance. They’re popping up on more and more posters, at bus stops, and in advertisements. For some people they’re eyesores; others think they’re printing errors. Yet more and more people are pulling out their smartphones and “scanning” them. Websites and short messages are encoded in these little squares – and apps like barcoo can display them in a browser within a split second. Since you don’t have to type in any URLs or web addresses, you save precious time and can even access them later.

Here at barcoo we’re also assisting publishers of QR-Codes. We’re creating print templates for the German Yellow-Page conglomerate and are offering an interface for evaluating scans and accessing websites.

Kabel1’s ad campaign with QR codes generated by barcoo (detail)

The following list contains some valuable tips on gaining and securing customers using QR codes.

Success factors:

• Get people excited. Offer more: It’s not enough to just print the company website as a QR code. Potential customers will only scan it once at the most. Link it up to background information or a special product page.
  It’s best to display QR codes at bus stops and train stations. Many people pass the time in those places with their iPhones or Android phones. Once they scan your QR code, you have their undivided attention.
• Offer clear instructions: Make the customer want to scan your QR code. Make your message clear and meet their expectations. Keep in mind that a poster’s essential information should be visible at first glance – because many customers don’t know what to make of the QR codes. If necessary, include short instructions and recommend an appropriate QR code-reader. Since barcoo has a market share of 85% of all barcode-scans in Germany, there’s already one less hurdle for customers. Depending on how the customer base has been established, it may be useful to print an additional abbreviated URL.
• Track scans and requests: Every campaign requires its metrics. A QR code’s success is particularly easy to track. That’s why you shouldn’t refer directly to the target URL, but to a redirecting URL that tracks how many people have accessed it. QR-generators like barcoo automatically offer this function. Each poster can be tracked individually, if desired.
• Don’t neglect design and usability:QR codes do not necessarily need to be black and white. As long as the colors provide a strong enough contrast, the codes can also be other colors. Small design elements like logos can also be placed inside. When printing a QR code, it’s important to make sure it’s within easy reach. Customers probably don’t want to stoop down or contort their wrists to scan a poster at the bus stop.When printing QR codes, it’s important to note the minimum printing size. The rule of thumb, regardless of a barcode’s complexity, is: the scanning distance divided by 10 is the minimum size.
• Print once – check twice: Even though you can always change the target URL later, it’s still better to use your smartphone and physically test all QR codes yourself when using a URL redirection service like barcoo.

Common mistakes:

• Making QR-Codes overly complex and large: Several companies save very long URLs with parameters as QR codes, which is a bad idea because QR codes then get more detailed, require more printing space, become more difficult to scan, and take longer to recognize. barcoo’s QR service prevents this by shortening the URL, but you can also use a service like bit.ly.
• Linking to non-optimized websites: Even with average connection speeds, target pages should load quickly on any standard smartphone, e.g. iPhone, Android, and Samsung bada. Videos should only be in standard formats and not exceed one minute. Flash is a no-go!
• Using incorrect encoding: Special characters in URLs are considered taboo because they aren’t always compatible. All QR codes should use the international, UTF-8 encoded characters.
• Directly encoding addresses or dates: This is only supported by a limited number of QR-reading apps. On top of that, QR codes are getting too complex. It’s better to offer a mobile landing page that recognizes the device and then potentially offers to import an address or a date.

Feel free to contact us whenever you have questions about QR codes. Our research shows that we have a market share of 85% of all barcode-scanning in Germany, which means that the chances are very high that barcoo will be used to scan your QR codes anyway.

We are often asked to what proportion the various mobile operating systems are represented by our users. The last statistic is nearly one year old, so it’s now time for an update. Below is the evolution of the various mobile platforms at barcoo:

You will have noticed the striking Samsung bada dent in the middle of last year. This is due to the fact that we supported bada from the start, that the Samsung devices sold well and that their app store was pretty empty. Therefore users downloaded most of the few apps available to them in the store. This temporary high market share could not be kept indefinitely. With a current overall market share of 5%, but nonetheless increasing steadily, the bada platform should still remain of interest to some app developers.

Nokia Symbian is a tragedy (see analysis by Tomi Ahonen). From August 31st, barcoo will cease supporting Nokia Symbian. It was a very painful decision: we’ve invested again and again in this platform, but now it’s enough. It’s all over.

In the graph, Windows Mobile and BlackBerry are hardly to be seen. Here also, because of the continued lack of use, we have been compelled to discontinue support for these platforms. We are currently not planning any WP7 or webOS version either. Anyone interested in detailed statistics will find the historical data in Google Docs.

The evolution of the current market share, compared to the average for 2010:

No surprises. It should be quite clear where we’re heading. Or not? Nokia will be (most likely) purchased soon. A lot is possible then: Maybe MeeGo after all? Exciting.

Since barcoo’s inception in January 2009 (in Germany), we’ve made an insane amount of changes and developments in just about everything but our app’s design (the very format of the information), which has stayed more or less the same. But the ever-accumulating information on barcoo’s database too often ended up diffusing into endless snaking chains and word blocks, which became quite the eye sore.

Now, after having thoroughly analyzed barcoo’s usage, we’ve developed a whole new design that will enhance your usage of the app. Here’s what it looks like:

There are three so-called ‘tabs’ that structure all of the contents: information, prices and evaluations. The product information is preselected by default (with the food traffic light, the sustainability traffic light and lots of other background information). However, the core information of the other two tabs is still visible in the top righthand corner. This design is immediately available for each of the two million people who’ve already installed barcoo! Marcus is looking forward to your Feedback.

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