Are QR Codes still in vogue? Or are they just a passing fad? Are they effective? Or have they already gone the way of the dodo bird?
I still don’t know the answer for sure, but I figure until magazine ads stop using them (or some really cool person humiliates me into a puddle of shame in front of my peers), they may still be alive and well. But I say leave it up to the magazine ad folks to do all the market research and determine if we should keep using QR codes, right?
Plus, I recently went to a college networking event and wore a QR code on my nametag and those kids came right up to me either asked what it was, or already had a QR code scanner app on their phone and began scanning my name tag. So there’s that.
What Are QR Codes?
QR Codes are kind of like UPC bar codes but shaped like a square. You can encode them with a URL, or contact information or text, all kinds of stuff. To read a QR code, you need a QR code scanner, typically an app installed on your smart phone.
How To Make A QR Code
There are a bajillion QR code generators out there, but I’ll show you how I created one using Zxing.
Go to the Zxing website and enter the information you want encoded into the QR code, such as a URL. (To open the website in a new browser tab so you can refer back to this tutorial easily, right-click on the link on your PC, or CNTL-click on your Mac.)
Click the Generate button and download the QR code image to your desktop.
You can put it on your website, a name tag, your business card, a poster, wherever your little heart desires.
How to Scan a QR Code
You need QR scan code reader, such as NeoReader for the iPhone, or Bar Scanner for the Android. I personally use Scan by QR Code City for the iPhone.
After you’ve installed the app and launched it, your phone’s camera turns on and is ready to scan the code. Try it using the QR code in this post. I’ve embedded simple text behind it.
I’d love to hear your experience with QR codes, if you think they’re dead, or if you find people are still interested them.
I believe QR codes were a passing fad in 2010-2011.
It’s hard to tell. Advertisers certainly use them more and more, but the big question is, how many people actually have a QR scan code reader app on their phone?
I used this for Clown Day! While I was out clowning around, if we saw someone with a smartphone and they wanted to know what the heck I was doing dressed like that, we shoved a QR code in their faces and they scanned it. The code led to the Clown Day Facebook page. We had a couple people use it. I say they’re still cool!
OK then, that’s one vote for cool. 🙂