QR Codes, podcasting and the N95

One of the problems with N95 is that it can do so much it takes ages to try all the different bits out. The last couple of days I have been utilising a couple of the features on the N95 that I hadn't quite got around to. I started with the podcasts, and that led me on to the QR Codes.

I have always found podcasts to be one of those things that have great potential, but I have never managed to quite get to work for me. Previously this has been due to my need to download the relevant files to my computer before transfering them to my MP3 player, which I never managed to successfully fit into my schedule. The N95 however, allows me to subscribe and download directly to the phone...podcasting is alive and well once again (although seemingly too late for Yahoo's Podcasts site).

A topic that occured on a couple of the podcasts I subscribed to this week (one of which was Digital Planet) was QR Codes. Whilst they have been around for a number of years, and are supposedly big in Japan, they have hit the news now as they are being incorporated in an advertising campaign for the 28 days later DVD in London. Basically the 2D barcodes allows for the inclusion of over 4,000 alphanumeric characters, which can be read through a mobile phone with a camera and the required software. Some phones, such as the N95, come with the software installed, whereas others need to have it downloaded.

Personally I think that the 28 weeks later advert gets it wrong by including a URL in normal text on the bottom. QR Codes are engaging when you don't know what they say. If I saw a QR code on its own I would scan it; seeing it with the URL for a film I don't care about, I don't bother because I know I am not interested. Obviously, if QR codes take off in the UK, we will become immune to most of them, and will need the extra information to persuade us that they are worth looking at. At this stage however, I believe a bigger buzz would have been created without it...but there again some of the other views of the people behind the campaign are quite questionable.

Personally I like the potential of the QR codes, and I am currently trying to get a T-shirt printed with my own personalised QR code message on it.