A London-based 'tech PR' blog post said this week:
When Kelly Brooks starts appearing in ads featuring QR codes you know that the 2D dot matrix bar code technology is close to a tipping point. Brooks features in a Pepsi campaign that has gone live this week and images of her clutching a QR code have featured in most of the tabloids.
Source: QR codes and the Kelly Brooks Pepsi campaign, hat tip for link: Heleana Quartey.
See also p8tch.com who says 'think of it as a TinyURL you can wear' and emmacott.com who say 'wear your profile'. There's even a Facebook 'add to friends' QR app and a Google Charts QR Code API.
It's interesting timing, as QR codes were discussed in a MCG thread on 'Putting web addresses on interpretation' that was in essence about linking from the offline physical world and online content.
While they're not mainstream enough to be a viable solution yet, we could be getting close to the tipping point where QR tags might become a viable way of bookmarking real world objects and locations. QR tags also provide a way of linking locations to online content without the requirements for a location-aware device.
hi mia,
you were asking about 'real life' uses of these codes. apparently the city of toronto really wants to know that what i throw out is my garbage. qr codes have shown up on our new garbage tags — you have to put on on any extra bags you use.
image on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jtrant/3105949578/sizes/o/ [sorry i couldn't link it in]
/jt
Really interesting example, thanks!
They are quite widely used within industry (tagging stock, barcoding letters, etc etc) but these aren't consumer facing! They aren't even compatible uses – lots of different proprietary systems.