Simon Woodside, the founder of barcode company Semacode sent me a press release announcing the marketing company of Shepardson Stern + Kaminsky (SS+K) will use his barcode technology for some promotional campaigns this year.
Last year SS+K used the company's semacodes -- including URLs in a barcode format -- for a multi-city treasure hunt sponsored by Qwest Communications, as I wrote in October.
The release doesn't provide any details. SS+K's clients include Time Warner Cable, Microsoft, Qwest, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, the Fannie Mae Foundation, Sirius Satellite Radio and the Bill + Melinda Gates Foundation.
Semacode in The Economist
Semacode is included in an article in The Economist entitled "Phones with eyes." You have to pay to read it on The Economist's site, but Simon includes the relevant passages -- plus his comments and some corrections -- on his Web site.
The article notes, "perhaps the most imaginative uses of two-dimensional bar-codes come from Semacode....
"When travellers scan the code, software on their phones interprets it and calls up a web page providing up-to-the-minute information about when the next bus will arrive. There is no need to key in a fiddly internet address."
Power to unintended/unthought-of uses
The article says, "Nico MacDonald, a design and technology strategist with Spy, a consultancy based in London, notes that technologies often thrive when people start using them for purposes beyond those for which they were originally intended.
"With camera-phones, that process would appear to be well under way."
This is an extremely important point. One of the reasons I was and am so bullish about camera phones -- and how they will change consumer communications and business processes -- is how they are being and will be employed for applications never envisioned by the developers.
Society-changing
I might add another point to the quote "when people start using them for purposes beyond those for which they were originally intended"...and when individuals and companies begin developing products and services to enhance the original applications and spark the use of new ones.
Okay, so I'm an egomaniac, but I chuckle (laugh, sneer) at analysts who think camera phones are no big deal. Wireless games and wireless music might be generating more excitement because of the potential for greater immediate revenues, but wireless imaging will change society.
Wireless games and music will primarily change those businesses. I'm certainly no underestimating the effects of wireless on music games and music. But wireless imaging's impact will be much broader.
If you want to change businesses, go into wireless games and wireless music. If you want to change the world, go into wireless imaging.
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