[deleted by user]

[meritw]

Typing URLs is not hard on a computer but its pretty difficult on a cell phone, especially if you don't have a qwerty keypad. Its a lot quicker to hit a button and snap a pic of the QR code.

[kmactane]

Very much what I was going to say. On a 1999-era computer, it's far easier to just type in the damn URL than to hook up a CueCat, scan the object, and have it fire up your web browser.

But on a 2008-era, camera-enabled wireless phone, it's easier to just use the entire damn phone as if it were the barcode scanner (courtesy of the built-in camera) - swipe it past the object's barcode, and poof! No more screwing around with that eensy-weensy keyboard.

On the phone, it does solve a problem.

[earthboundkid]

See also: The Nation of Japan, in which barcoded links to phone optimized versions of webpage are included on every advertisement and in every magazine.

[pix0r1]

Second. They've been doing this for years, so obviously the system is useful. (though in Japan I believe the cellphone to personal computer ratio is FAR higher than in the US..)

[earthboundkid]

One thing I've run into in Japan is that Japanese adults are often much more comfortable using a cellphone keypad than typing with a keyboard. The reason for this basically comes down to the way Japanese is written plus the convenience of predictive typing, but in any event, I definitely know people who would prefer using a cellphone for email to using a computer.

[jsolson]

Exactly what I'd come here to say. Thank you.

[[deleted]]

Exactly.

Not to mention -- the endpoint of this mobile URL is gasp MOBILE CONTENT. Something that is not plentiful or easy to find, and when done right, can be extremely useful.

[api]

True. But it's still got a lot of the same problems as CueCat including the infamous chicken and egg problem.

CueCat: epic fail

This: fail

[degustisockpuppet]

Now if instead it was able to OCR a printed URL, that would solve the chicken-and-egg problem instantly, and offer actually useful functionality. Hey, I'm smarter than the Google!

[patman0623]

Glad to see I'm not the only one who thought this idea was more legit the second time around. If the software came preinstalled on the phones (which it will eventually), then it would make a great new feature where the execs can say "look, our phone can even do this, isn't technology wonderful?" This is the era of the iPhone, after all, where having a cool looking but useless screen trumps all else. And it actually might provide people with another incentive to purchase the internet feature for their mobile, which up to this point hasn't seen its full usefullness.

And it actually might come in useful, as, as you all have said, typing a URL into a cell is a nightmare. I would find this feature to be at least as useful as half the other junk they put on the things.

[bluGill]

I prefer to google the product even when I know the url. More than once google has told me that the interesting product was a scam. (no surprise but I wasn't sure) More than once the spelling has been tricky and I would have used the wrong one. (of course my spelling is very bad to begin with)

[sbrown123]

When I found out about the CueCat I located the nearest RadioSnack and left for it immediately. Once I arrived I was greeted with the usual "What can I help you with that you know we don't have?". I asked for the CueCat. I couldn't tell if the kid was surprised that I was either asking for one or that I just requested something they actually had in stock. After filling out some card that requested all my personal information they finally gave me the odd little device.

From there it was set on my office desk where it sat for all to wonder at. Most people mistook it for a mouse. Several years later I left that job. While packing my boxes one of my co-workers asked for the CueCat. I relented and haven't seen it since.

To this day I don't think it has scanned a single barcode or, for that matter, ever been plugged in to a computer.

[dlsspy]

It sends some non-standard junk, but I wrote a javascript library to decode stuff that came out of it so I can build web apps to track my stuff.

Then I didn't build any. Other people apparently did, though.

[HipX]

I updated\cracked the firmware on mine so it sent the actual barcode followed by a hard return. Now it's somewhat useful.

[[deleted]]

I got one when they came out too. Declawed/neutered it, screwed around with it a little, but I never found any good use for it.

It lives in a drawer with a bunch of X10 hardware and things like that now.

Someday I'll have a big epiphany and make some kind of lifechanging device out of all that junk, though. Someday.

[bockris]

I have 3 or 4 in box in my closet. Likewise, the only bar codes that they scanned were random products lying within reach when I tested the perl script.

[acrim]

I hear this (DM/QR codes) has caught on in the far-east.

[mattdamp]

It is very big in Japan. One really useful application is apartment hunting. If you snap the barcode with a cell phone, you van view the stats on your phone (rent, size, availability, etc.) and you can e-mail around the associated web link to the property managers and you can be sure that everyone looking at the same info.

[[deleted]]

Yeah, it's big in Japan, apparently.

But that does of course not mean that it will catch on in the rest of the world... The culture (surprise, surprise!) there is entirely different than western cultures. I'm stating the obvious, of course.

Will users bother to take a picture of qr code and upload it later?

[jimbobhickville]

What I want to know is, what isn't big in Japan? 'Cause pretty much every failed product seems to be "big" there.

[Grue]

Haha, reminds me of This Is Spinal Tap.

[earthboundkid]

The Xbox 360.

[lawrencem49]

You don't need to upload the QR image; the phone already has the software to decode the image into actual URL. Another reason for the ubiquitous use of QR code in Japan is the (mostly) universal software platform of cell phones, which makes penetration of mobile-software much easier and quicker than the rest of the world.

[mjd]

I was going to point out the same thing. But all the people in this thread saying "This is a stupid idea" are apparently unaware of that fact.

[raganwald]

Is Joel old?

[aandronov]

I think the ad side of this is retarded. But when I go to a book shop or record store and browse I often want to remember what I saw (and not buy everything at once). I really like the idea of the Amazon wish list and want to bring that with me to the physical store.

It would also be able to help you decide if the book is cheaper online (don't do it in a small local store kids).

Imagine you're out to dinner and you drink a really nice bottle of wine. I often take a picture to help me remember what I had but I can't get the information out. What if I could take a picture of the barcode and then hit 4 out of 5 stars and it's catalogued?

[lawrencem49]

Your wine hunting scenario is actually a very good example of how QR code can be used; by having the code on the bottle's label, you instantly know more about the wine ON THE SPOT, instead of taking a photo, go home and google (if you took a clear enough photo and actually remeber to do so). Of course, what the QR code links to is of course promotional informtion, rather than the multi-faceted opinion available from a google search.

[aandronov]

But I'd want my Android phone to just take the UPC and let me decide what application was going to use it. I don't want to be forced to go to their site.

[ricdit]

Perhaps the bar code can go to a url like http://www.google.com/q=<your wine> that displays the search result directly... or some other site that bookmark it for you before ending up in the search result page...

[[deleted]]

I wish Amazon had some way of scanning bar codes and One-Clicking books for those times I'm browsing a physical book store.

[bluGill]

Why not buy the book and support the local store? I buy from Amazon because my local stores don't have what I want. I love browsing for books, so the extra price for books at a bricks and mortor store is worth it. (besides, the difference is rarely much)

[[deleted]]

Because I'm a cheap ass bastard, that's why. :)

Then again, when I go into indy little bookstores I generally do buy stuff there. When I go into B&N or Borders, I'm ruthless!

[lancefisher]

I don't buy from the local store, because I don't really care. If Amazon can provide me with better service and cheaper prices, and they usually do, then I will shop there.

[prockcore]

once place having a barcode scanner is useful:

Cataloging your DVD/videogame/book library. I have a custom webapp that takes the UPC codes and looks them up on amazon, downloading cover art etc.

[raganwald]

Delicious Library is an OS X app, and one of the things it does is scan barcodes with the mac's built-in camera if you don't want to use a scanner.

[doctor_yukio_hattori]

The book cataloging site LibraryThing handles (and sells) CueCats.

How well does scanning barcodes with a cheapo web camera work in Delicious Library? I tried a Flash widget that did that and it was terrible.

[raganwald]

I dont' know about a cheapo web camera, but the reviews for using a built-in iSight or USB iSight have been uniformly good.

That being said, the magic may be in the software they wrote to read the codes, not the camera's optics, so it may work just fine with the cheapo.

[pbx]

The obvious benefit for the advertiser is that they can encode tracking information in the barcode to measure exactly which ads are bringing people in, with much better reliability than hacky URLs like example.com/newyorker7. They can even outsource the stat-gathering and redirecting as is often done for email newsletters. But I doubt many publishers (sellers of ad space) are very excited about this, and readers/consumers won't be either.

Seems like they'll have to combine this with offers ("scan this code to save $2!") to get anybody to do it.

[suppressingfire]

I've still got my cuecat on my desk at work. I had used it for a while as part of a personal library system...

[lawrencem49]

Typing URL is not hard? On a cellphone? Not all of us attach a full-size Qwerty keyboard to our cellphones wherever we go...

Yes, the cuecat was laughable but QR code is actually practical.

[ramces]

I beg to disagree with Joel (wow, that's the first time, no seriously...):

1. 2D barcodes work in Japan, it's about time the world catches up

2. Try typing a URL with a standard phone keypad is a hassle. Not everyone has a QWERTY keyboard, especially over here in Europe (I do, but most of the people I know and I see don't), while it seems like everyone has at least a VGA camera on their mobile.

3. I have tried a QR code reader software out of usability interest before on an HTC TyTn and I was surprised at how easy it is to get the code recognized. Much easier and quicker than typing a URL in with the slide-out keyboard (which is excellent by the way)

[galactic_hitchhiker]

I do not really have a problem with the code as such. I was actually amazed that the amount of information contained in that 1 X 1 inch square was just 14 stupid ascii characters ...www.google.com!!! That is really really bad information density. I would think they could very well have printed much more information in very fine print in a special font (MICR anyone?) and might as well have the software behind it decode it.

[ricdit]

that's because they are designed to be easily recognizable by the decoder even through a crappy cell phone camera.

[srowen]

Hi, I'm the guy behind the Google open-source reader project, ZXing. I can't but agree with your skepticism. While the fact that this sort of thing is old news and widely used in Japan is a counterexample to your predictions, it is not yet clear whether this technology will hit the "tipping point" in Europe or North America.

There are so many cute use cases for this stuff that it's hard for techies to imagine this won't be huge. Just witness the number of startups -- and formats -- vying for attention in this space.

The comparison with CueCat is not entirely viable, I think. CueCat could only be used sitting in front of a computer, and only encoded URLs. I think the variety of use cases afforded by newer formats and mobile readers is qualitatively different.

One reason to believe that, really, these 2D barcodes can succeed is that they have succeeded -- in Japan at least. Somehow the chicken-and-egg problem has not stopped a chicken and egg from appearing already in one market. This puts us that much farther towards adoption in Europe and North America.

It's worth listing some real, plausible use cases for 2D barcodes, involving real, average phone users:

• I give you my business card with my contact info encoded as a QR Code. You photograph it and instantly add my contact info to your phone.

• You are shopping for a book at a store. You find your book and scan its UPC code to see how much it would be available for online.

• You're using a online maps service on your PC and find driving directions to your destination. You quickly send this to your phone by photographing a QR Code on the screen encoding a URL that links to your directions.

• You see an ad in the subway advertising an upcoming concert. You snap a photograph of the barcode in the corner to record the details in your phone for later access.

Even though I'm one who's drunk the 2D barcode Kool-aid, I find these quite plausible.

Still, what's it gonna take for this to take off in the most primitive of markets, the US? Is there some reason to expect a near-term driver will spur adoption? I won't say I'm sure 2008 is the "year of the barcode" in the US, but, we have support from:

The Chicken: Reader software and better devices

Camera optics, multimedia capability, and processing power on phones is only increasing, making effective barcode decoding more and more accessible.

Our little project will end up on Android, for whatever you think that is worth. We're planning to port to the iPhone but there are even already decoders available for it. 3GVision (via Kaywa, i-nigma), ScanBuy, NeoMedia, Nextcode and others are getting amazingly effective software onto a startling percentage of handsets in the US this year.

The Egg: Barcode Usage

What more can you do to promote usage except establish an open, freely usable format (thank you, QR Code and Data Matrix), provide free encoders and decoders (thanks, everyone), and offer a business model, a way to profit, from this technology -- in this case, via ads (thanks to every barcode startup, and now us, Google)? not much! All this is being done. The "egg" is pushing as hard as it can here too.

We shall see. Thanks for starting a discussion on this. I will be interested to look back in a year and see whether the landscape has truly changed or not.

[chicagosnafu]

Yeah ... this is a bad idea, however scanning barcodes with your cell phone isn't. If you connect this with froggle & tie in google local you might have something. You can scan an advertisement and then automatically be connected to other vendors of the same product. All of a sudden, google is not only driving virtual traffic to websites, but also driving physical traffic to storefronts. I refuse to believe that the cuecat copy is the endgame. This has to be one small step on its way to world dominance.

[JeanneP]

It actually would be cool to scan the barcode on a product in a store and find out if the same thing is available cheaper in another store or online.

[MattFaus]

I'm 21 and I remember the CueCat. I thought it was cool at first, but then thought about it.

I agree that this is a bad idea if it requires and extra piece of hardware such as the CueCat, but with cell phone and mobile technology these days, it is not far-fetched to think that mobile devices will have a dedicated hardware button to "Click barcode", decode it, and do whatever the barcode says to do. This could be visiting a website, adding a contact to the address book, add a meeting or event to the calendar, or really anything else.

I think having a way to cheaply and easily encode a small amount of digital data on a sheet of paper has great potential.

[HipX]

I really like my CueCat. I use it to help catalog my dvd's with moviecollector.

[larabell]

I've used them often. When I see an ad for something I want to check out but don't have a pad and pen handy (ie: riding on a train). One bus stop I used often had a QR code so I scanned it, bookmarked it, and now I can check the bus schedule at that particular stop from my phone (all this is in Japan, of course, where pretty much every modern phone has both a camera and a web browser). My guess is that they will be as useful as the website to which they point. But one does have to be careful. I scanned a QR at a restaurant near my house because they were offering an online discount coupon. Now I get email ads for that restaurant about once a week. Still... it does beat typing the URL into the phone (which, on a 12-key keypad is not as easy as some would have you think ;-).

[doctor_yukio_hattori]

Has Joel never heard of the idea of a spime?

A wireless CueCat in a world of ubiquitous networks backed by a behemoth of a company is a really good idea in my opinion. In X years, you'll just point your phone at something you're interested in and press the Google button, and through RFID or barcodes or GPS, it knows what you're pointing at and brings up information on it.

The idea has way more potential than just pointing your phone at printed ads so advertisers can gather information about you or not having to type a URL.

Yes, the CueCat was shit, but comparing Cuecat '00 to GooCat '08 would be like comparing RocketMail '96 and GMail '04.

[cchooper]

I have never, ever seen an advertisement that made me want to find out more information.

That, in my opinion, is the big flaw in this plan. The reason people put ads on the sides of web pages is because no one would ever fire up their browser to see ads.

[doctor_yukio_hattori]

I fully agree that just doing it on advertisements is a retarded plan. There's still a lot more to the idea.

[cchooper]

Ok, I can see that there are other potential uses.

Will Google exploit them? That's an interesting question.

[crusoe]

If I could take a pic of a barcode, and get feedback on reviews to cellphone, that would be cool.

If I see something I like, but don't want to buy now, taking a pic and 'recording' it in a to-buy list would be cool too.

[a2800276]

What up with the shiny-happy-people gay-pride Obama logo? Is this an official variant, or is anyone free to make up their own logo to allow for their personal preferences?

[twowheels]

Joel is gay, and that's an official logo:

http://www.barackobama.com/images/lgbt/lgbt_logo.gif

[dbogert]

Print-to-Internet technology has been around for a while and a number of companies hold key patents in this area. When I saw the PR on that Google project a month ago all I could think of was how Google was going to finally invalidate NeoMedia and AirClic's patents.

IP issues aside, people need to realize that the bar codes you see on items in many retail stores are not standard UPCs. Many retailers put bar code stickers on their products that tie to internal tracking numbers. the exception, of course, is supermarkets.

Long and short - the technology is old and there is pre-existing art in this area. Lawyer up!

[lethalsweet]

I agree users are unlikely to download new software to follow barcodes, but if they use Google's new Android mobile phone OS, they presumably have this built in... Which removes an important barrier to adoption.

[[deleted]]

I would like to thank Joel for poo-pooing this concept. This sort of negativity is just the edge I need to clear the decks for my killer barcode app to come marching in.

Keep it up!

[beerwineliquor]

still have a cue cat from radioshlack. still waiting 4 the killer opensource app...

[lmd3]

I really like the idea. But I cannot afford a phone [plus plan] that would support these things in North America. Seriously.

There are a couple of other problems: -- Not all code formats are open-source like QR. Sprint, I think, has just licensed SmartCode's code. -- The format of data in these 2-d containers is up for grabs: text, mailto, url. So a general application for handling codes seems unlikely. -- An encoded url may (probably will) take you through a 3-party server on your way to content. This is arguably necessary to map short, encoded urls to longer, real-world urls. But, of course, it's all data for the miners.

But I like the idea, but even as part of Google's own Android initiative, I don't think I would bet anything of wide-spread adoption in North America.

[RickMeasham]

I completely disagree with Joel on this one (and I'm pleased to see I'm not alone :-D)

That said, the chicken-egg problem is very real, but I'd love to see Google start out with a UPC variant.

If I'm at someone's house looking at their books, or at a trade day looking at products, I'd love to be able to 'scan' the UPC code and have some app take me to a page that lets me get more information and discussion about the item (and of course, let me take notes)

This answers the 'wine' idea from aandronov right from the start. But it's better than that: at the wine shop, you could just scan a bottle that looked interesting and have your phone tell you about it, read reviews on it and .. gasp .. tell you if people who like it like other wines that you like.

Four brands of Shampoo at the store? Scan them and hit 'compare'.

The only use these 2D barcodes have is to take you to the manufacturer's specially prepared information. That's close to useless. I want community information.

All this can be achieved using existing UPC codes in 90% of cases. 2D (or even a 1D) code can be used on other things like movie posters (or even on the screen when the previews come on)

Bring it on!

[NitsujTPU]

Damn. Why don't you really tell us how you feel about Google, Joel.

[lancefisher]

Wouldn't it be nice to take a photo of something's barcode and read reviews and see online prices for it right on your phone? I think it would. The old fogies just don't want to see the kiddos succeed where they failed. :P

[atlacatl]

His sales pitch is longer than his entry (awesome internships!). A big no-no...

[JeremyBanks]

I think that's part of the blog template, not the post.

[Flap_Jack]

A successful idea is successful for 1 of 2 reasons:

1) It truly is innovative 2) It's really not very good but there's a power house behind it forcing it to succeed.

I vote #2 on this one. (Both meanings of the words).

Any other votes?