Chapter 9
Embracing a Readable Future
In This Chapter
Exploring the competition to QR Codes
Bridging the offline and online worlds is here to stay, even if QR Codes aren’t
Do you remember Atari, Google Wave and Buzz, and Friendster? What about Zip drives, Beta videos, MiniDiscs, or Pets.com with its dog sock puppet? Some of these may ring a bell because they all share something in common: They were all the latest and greatest technologies of their day. And now they don’t exist anymore.
The current success of QR Codes stands in stark contrast to these failed ventures, but that’s only because people are scanning these QR Codes with something besides a reader: their own rose-colored glasses.
No one knows what the future of QR Codes will be. In researching for this book, I came across article after article with headlines such as “QR Codes Are Dead” or profiles of a person or technology that would slay these apparently silly and ugly looking QR Codes. Still, I just bought a new color printer from one of the big office supply stores, and every sales tag in the electronics section had a QR Code on it!
The truth is that both sides are right. QR Codes are becoming more popular by the day, but ultimately they’ll be replaced by something else.
In this chapter, I look at some of the alternatives ...
