Barcodes And Physical World Connection Could Transform Ad Industry

Adotas has a nice summary on how barcodes (physical world hyperlinks,) when scanned with a camera phone, (Physical World Connection) have the ability to transform the ad industry.

The article discusses what could happen when special barcodes (2D codes) are used as links to more info about products. Although the data contained in the barcode ALREADY on the products contains less info, it too will be used as a link to the Internet.

The Humble Barcode Could Change The Ad Industry



"One particularly interesting technology already gaining considerable traction in the Far East is the use of barcodes that enable mobile phones to interact directly with every day objects.

The premise is simple – people use the cameras on their mobile phones to read encoded information via barcodes. These new types of barcodes (2D codes) can hold a far greater depth of data than the barcodes we’re used to seeing on every day objects today. Once scanned, software built into mobile phones can translate the information into content ranging from text and images through to video clips.

For direct response advertisers this could have a major impact. Instead of being restricted to the inclusion of 1 800 numbers and URLs, offline ads could start to evolve into far more powerful pull marketing tools."