Understanding Google My Business & Local Search
Google Officially Ends Support For QR Code in Places
Google is obviously moving strongly towards NFC (near field communications) as their technology of choice for closing the loop of the “last mile” in the local link between consumers and Google. They have built the NFC chip into their new Nexus and they are testing NFC in both a payment and POS environments. They used NFC chips in Places signage in their Portland Hotpot promotion (although they were not very effective).
But their aggressive support for NFC seems to be the death knell for their support of QR codes. Why that should be is unclear but last week QR Codes disappeared from the Google Places Dashboard and yesterday Google provided me with this statement:
Users will no longer find unique QR codes in their Places accounts. We’re exploring new ways to enable customers to quickly and easily find information about local businesses from their mobile phones.
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Comments
24 Comments
It will be interesting to see what Google comes up with next. I’m not sure why they can’t keep the QR Codes too. What harm is there in placing a Google Poster in your storefront window?
I think they are too lazy to support the qr codes. It takes tremendous effort to mail out the qr stickers.
Mike, I will not be going out on a limb by saying “this will end up failing”. Why? From the linked article “The pending privacy initiatives brewing in Washington DC aspire to equally address digital and traditional marketing and consumer data collection. Meanwhile the Europeans are already implementing new, strict privacy rules.”
When Marie Sue in Tulsa finds out that Google will be able to track what she buys and how much she buys Marie Sue will not be happy.
NFC technology is certainly powerful, but the low cost and growing adoption of QR codes make them a durable trend. No chips for me! #666
Gotta pulldown those QR codes now. Good thing I only used it online.
While I get that for Google purposes NFC is a useful solution I’d like to second on comment 1 by Sandra:
I don’t really see QR and NFC solving the same problems—thus not being interchangeable.
You can’t just print a NFC on your business card or in a paper. Or paint it on your car or your roof to be seen AND used from afar (maybe DASH7 could do that).
For QR you just need paint and a camera. For NFC you need hardware AND you need to be very close to the object.
Googles explanation only refers to the geographical aspects of QR codes. The other key potential with QR codes, maybe even more important from a marketing/business perspective, is the ability for consumers to act on impulses. I feel pretty confident that this application dimension holds the answer to Googles decision, i.e. they got something else cooking.
Mary Sue won’t care. Mary Sue doesn’t care about Facebook, she’s not going to care about this either.
I used QR codes the other day to record information and pricing about a couple of items I was thinking of purchasing at a big box retailer. The QR coed was there and in a few seconds I walked away with the info I wanted. If Google leaves the building, that doesn’t mean the building is going to fall down.
So many changes from Google in the last few days. First Google + 1 now this.
I never had QR codes on my places account as they were only trailing it in certain states and it was a pretty stupid place to put them anyway as if you go there on a mobile you get a mobile site anyway.
So it is pretty silly to base any decision on this as there are so many other places adopting it.
Quentin
We just launched a new social networking / group messaging app that uses QR codes. Its a very practical technology if you know how to apply it correctly.
Check it out at: http://www.huddl.me/i (its iOS only right now)
NFC is better but QR codes make much more sense for people and a majority of businesses, especially for marketing. We still offer a great place for people and businesses to get their own page and unique QR code via our QR code generator at qwiqr.
I find the dropping of QR codes odd.
Especially if you’ve visited countries like Japan where they are everywhere.
The adoption rate of QR are starting to show here in the Uk as well if you look around and have found some great uses for marketing local businesses offline with online integration using QR codes.
If I were Google (or Apple – iPhone) I would do what the Japanese mobile phone manufacturers did and preload the QR reading apps onto the phone, o better yet incorporate I right into their Camera App
The most likely reason is the cost of postage but don’t worry, anyone can easily create a QR code.
Get it touch if you want to know how to really use them.
Had to re-read the official statement and as it states “no longer find unique QR codes in their Places accounts”. So it’s a places issue and nothing further. QR codes are still available via Google’s Chart API:
http://code.google.com/apis/chart/docs/gallery/qr_codes.html
As of this writing, I’m able to confirm that calls to google to produce QR codes still work perfectly fine.
I think they might have bailed a bit too early with this decision — time will tell.
NOOO!! I understand print communication is on the way out anyway….but QR is far superior to other forms of bridging! NFC is going to take generations to catch on, and there is no reason to drop QR during the transition. It has only barely reached me how to use this marketing tool, and now I dont have anything to link the business cards, fliers, and other advertising mediums directly to easily-setup and servicable google places networks! Url’s are a pain, Qr fixes that.
I think its ok for qr codes to be pulled. They have been around for years in other countries and the usa was just to late and technology has passed them by. They will help stores like best buy and things for price checking or info dowloads but they are not the way of the future i dont think.
This is like the argument about linear barcodes versus the passive RFID tags! Both have their place, and QR codes are great in connecting technical articles to more inforamtion on the web. I don’t see how you will be able to print an NFC on publication like Technology Review! Nor how you could embed and NFC on a website, however I leave that up to Google to figure out.
Keep QR codes for printed media, that is not going away anytime soon.
Not a big deal really. Bitly creates a unique custom QR Code for each URL shortened using their engine, so the GP business listing owner can simply add the QR code image to their GP listing to accomplish the same goal as before (ie) let the visitor scan the QR code on their smart phone device and redirect the user to the desired webpage.
Some of us think QR is here to stay and has a lot more potential than people think. http://qrdvark.com/implementation/
QR Codes to stay yes so are PC computers but do you really want one and QR codes are great for some uses. If im going to advertise I want to engage quickly use a text format and you can do that as well as capture their info. Why do you think real estate agents went from qr codes to Texting in a matter of a year
[…] pushing intensively to get SMBs to adopt them and use them as decals at their places of business, Google dropped QR code support. If this had been working for local consumers, Google wouldn’t have abruptly halted it. This […]
Bit late stumbling on this (I’m doing a bit of research on NFC) but some interesting comments regarding the introduction of NFC and how people viewed it would affect the usage of QR codes. Here in Ireland at least QR codes have gone from strength to strength, largely due to the ease of use for business owners although I’m envisaging a major adoption of NFC once people start jumping on the Google Offers bandwagon!!
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