Thoughts on Communications in Ireland » applications

Nice use of QR Codes

admin — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 14:12:06 +0000

I had an issue a while ago trying to view a QR code on a business card I received but an interesting discussion on the For Immediate Release podcast and an invite I received to the adgrad Winner of the RTE copywriting competition (it was awarded yesterday at an event in DIT Aungiers Street) prompted me to look at it again.

QR codes (or quick response codes) are basically an image like a bar code that scanners and QR codes applications on camera phones can interpret. Once you scan it (I used a free QRcodereader on iTunes) you are brought to an online space (website, email address, social media) where you can find out more information.

Most current uses that I can see of QR codes are to make it easier to find web addresses especially ones with long urls but there are load of potential applications. QR codes are already being used by the Irish media on news paper such as the Metro Herald with the DRG group and Social Media.ie did a nice post on some extra uses. Now that smart phones are reaching critical mass and as the creative industries start to deploy them we will see lots more applications. One nice one could be virtual/real treasure hunt where people need to find QR code on a posters that bring them to another location until someone find the prize. Here is an example of one in New York. Either way another nice one for the toolkit.

You need to generate a QR code first but there is useful guide available on QRcodes.ie. Here is one for this blog

(Edit on 17th June). When you start to look for something, you see it everywhere. Nice offer of generating a QR code from Worky that can be used on a business card.

(Edit 28 June) Digital Times ran an interesting piece on the inclusion of QR codes in the Food Lovers Guide to Ireland.

Bought some grapes yesterday and was very pleasantly surprised to find that the QR code brought me to a video on recipes and ideas on preparing grapes.

QR codes on Dunnes Stores Grapes

(Edit 30 June). Went to the Bloggers International event last night in Portlaoise and spotted another nice use of QR codes. Great event and nice video link ups with the UK. As usual I alway pick up some gems at these type meet up. As part of the event they invited some people to do elevator pitches that they recorded. One of the companies who pitched held up a print out of a QR code for their website. Simple and clever. Will post the video once its available.

(Edit 1 July ) Nice article today by John Kennedy in Silicon Republic and QR codes. Had never really thought about supermarkets using the QR codes to sell the ingredients for meals. You scan a big QR code at store entrance that gives you list of ingredients for a meal, directions on where to find them and video of how to cook them.

(Edit 6th July) these edits could go on for a while. Really interesting use of QR codes by Tesco in South Korea where they printed large print outs of their shelves at train stations where people could scan and order food using the printed codes.

The Sunday Business Post Computers in Business magazine led with QR codes last week citing really good examples from property company Sherry Fitzgerald.

(edit 25th July) Previous focus has been on what people do with their QR codes i.e. simple point to a website or some creative execution of it. Now according to Mashable, “a 30% tolerance in readability” means people can be much more creative in desiging the QR codes themselves.

This is the invite from the DIT students and congrats for being so inventive.

Adgrad invite from DIT featuring QR codes.

Twitter Mosaic – Cool Tool – Now what do I do!

admin — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 17:11:25 +0000

New Twitter applications seem to pop up on a daily basis. I tried Twitterfone recently but discovered I need to speak a little bit more carefully as first post was a bit garbled. Stumbled across this one on IGO People recently. Its called Twitter Mosaic and does what it says on the tin. Draws up a pictoral mosaic of the people in your network and the gives you the code to put on your blog. Nice tool – now what do I do with it? This is a recurring theme with Twitter – cool tools first then the community creates uses for them. As the different networks converge and allow sharing of content I expect more of these sharing tools will emerge.

Get your twitter mosaic here.

Building Applications in Facebook

admin — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 09:02:55 +0000

Facebook offers a great medium for building relevant applications and is one of the reasons that it has maintained its current numbers of subscribers. We have built an application called Get Creative which is a database of Public Relations, Marketing and Advertising ideas. It is currently in beta testing on Facebook but the philosophy behind it is that you can search for ideas, add your own and comment on other peoples contributions to give them further life. Launched internally we have found that it helps people to start thinking more creatively and watching what trends, ideas and initiatives are happening all around them. It was born out of frustration of thinking up great ideas which disappeared into the far recesses of your mind before you could full capture them. It will be an interesting test of collaboration amongst the public relations, marketing and advertising sectors.

Some lessons from the exercise:

- Get a good developer on board
- Test as many other applications as you can to see what you like and what works well
- Keep it as simple as possible
- Keep data entry down to a minimum of time
- Be aware of the external hosting requirements
- Get a core group to test the application and populate
- If people fail or run into problems at early stages its harder to get them to engage later so make sure most bugs are eliminated early
- Think through how the application will look and how the person will interact with it and draw up a information flow
- Assume that it needs to be pretty intuitive as more people will not have the patience to read long rules and instructions
- Become an evangalist for it

We hope to roll out more broadly through Facebook in the next week or so.

Look out for the Irish Times unofficial Facebook application and the Silicon Republic one which is being tested.

Eoin