Seeing Forests

As Dan Frommer reports Google’s Newspaper Ads: Big Hopes For Small Barcodes, Google is trying to merge print and online with 2 dimensional barcodes or Semacodes.  The idea is that people can use a cell phone to take a picture of the bar code in print, go to a web page, and take advantage of some special offer.  Google in turn tracks this and reports back to the advertiser.  According to the Print Ads 2D Barcodes page: 

To read 2D barcodes, your phone will need several things: a camera (ideally with a close-focus or macro mode) and the proper decoding software installed. Your phone will also need a web browser and data service to visit any encoded URLs.

Pretty straight-forward.  Not.  Reminds me of the time we were working in the Lab at Local Matters a couple of years ago.  Perry Evans came up with the idea of doing just this with 1 dimensional bar codes following the release of some Japanese camera and associated web service.   So I said sure and went down to Martin May and talked the project over with him.  After a few hours of noodling going back and forth over the user experience of trying to do all this when Martin realized that there’s usually a number below the bar code.  Phones are really good at typing in numbers.  Of course, Perry and I knew that.  We just wanted to make it hard. 

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