Barcodes Squared

In the 1970s, the first magazine for personal computer hobbyists, Creative Computing, printed BASIC programs in its pages, allowing its readers to type them into their TRS-80 and Apple II computers. In the early 1980s, a company hit upon manufacturing a barcode scanner and reproducing programs in barcodes, and so the magazine experimented with these codes -- although the results were less than accurate. Bulletin boards, online services, and web sites eliminated the need for printing programs, relegating the barcode to retail and back office inventory. Fast forward to today where scanners at the cash register -- or self checkout lanes -- record every product purchase.

Yet the advancing digital world marks a comeback for the lowly barcode, albeit in a new, square shape and will a new name: Quick Response Code (QR for short). Manufacturers are sticking them everywhere, in adverts, displays, price tags, and billboards. Smartphone users scan the QR, which pops open a web page, plays a video, or otherwise directs your attention to the particular product. For example, Macy's uses them to offer how-to guides for applying cosmetics and sprucing up your home decor.

US use remains low, but rising. According to Forrester Research, only 5% of smartphone users scanned a QR. As a marketing tool, QR is cheap, portable, and, at least for now, new and mysterious. The trick is to impart some value to the destination of the QR -- if all it becomes is an advert, familiarity will breed contempt, and people will avoid QRs the same way they don't click on web page banner ads.