QR Codes

Posted by Suzy Vitello Soulé on May 25th, 2011 at 04:11 PM | | Tweet

If you haven’t heard of them yet, you’re about to. QR (or, Quick Response) codes have been all the rage in Japan for a while now, and they are the latest must have in layering your visibility.

You can find QR codes storing addresses and URLs in magazines, on signs, buses, business cards, or almost any object about which users might need information. Users with a camera phone equipped with the correct reader application can scan the image of the QR code to display text, contact information, connect to a wireless network, or open a web page in the phone’s browser. This act of linking from physical world objects is termed hardlinking or object hyperlinking.

One important application is for Indie booksellers—a way to compete with, say, Amazon, and have the advantage of a hard-copy model. Here’s how it works: booksellers include QR codes on their shelves that link to individual eBooks in their catalogs. Shoppers can browse the hardcopies in the store and use their cell phone to buy the book on the corresponding website.

So, how do you get a QR codes? Here are some free tools Kaywa, GoQR.me, or QR Stuff.