3D QR Code Animation

Ideal for 'Point of sale' promotions where you have more than one offer. An animated rotating 3D QR code cube which attracts attention and allows for easy editing and replacing of the QR codes as and when needed.

3D QR Code Animation

Pure CSS construction and animation. Easy to implement and maintain. Let's face it. Animations attract more attention and the cube provides the ability to display 6 different QR codes. More fun with QR Codes.

"Ok, so I use a QR code and send it to my website that does not use Flash and that makes it suitable for all browsers, right?"

WRONG!

Take the example below where we compare the same website. One is a standard website the other is the same site but with adaptive technology applied making it most suitable for tablet and smartphones alike.

If your websites are not ready for the next generation you could be loosing out. Worse yet send a mobile browser to a bad site and you're compromsing the experience big time.

Mobile usage is on the rise and is no longer a market you can afford to ignore.

Some recent developments that may motivate you to get into mobile if your not yet there.

• Of the 4 billion mobile phones, 1.09 are smartphones.
• Android and Apple cover 74% of the market.
• 30% are willing to scan codes to get discount offers.
• 40% of users leaving your store without a purchase were influenced via mobile.
• 95% of mobile acitivity is located around local resources.
• Mobile usage has increased 193% since 2010.
• QR Code scanning increased 300% in 2011.
• Tablets are used an average of 14 hours per week.
• 73% of mobile users access social media apps daily.
• Web traffic via smartphones increased 105% from 2011 to 2012.
• Currently 6 billion mobile global subscribers this equals 87% of the world population.
• Google currently earns 2.5 billion dollars from mobile ads.
• 80% of searches on smartphones are spontaneous.
• 60% smartphone shopping is done at home.
• 38% of media interaction is via smartphone.

More information about adaptive mobile friendly websites can be found here. For a ready made interactive mobile framework you can easily adapt to suit your business, look at the MKB PRO offer.

Remember: QR codes are scanned by mobile devices, please ensure your web services live up to the expectations of mobile users.

What mobile marketers use to get their message to mobile markets.

A comparison between 2010 and 2011 deployed mobile marketing tactics. I'm sure that 2012 will again see an increase in the use of QR codes.

Source: Chief Marketer Mobile Marketing Survey

In 2010 no one bothered to check the use of augmented reality, so data is missing for this year.

Interesting to note is that barcode scanning is up 15% (this includes QR codes, MS tag and other proprietary barcoding technology) and outperforms any other technology used between 2010 and 2011 and I expect it to increase even more in 2012. Mobile apps are also still a popular instrument for branding and marketing.

SMS marketing that was always seen as an urgent and immediate communication channel has declined the most. Even though it is the fastest and simplest way to set up, use and to communicate to mobile devices, I can only imagine that the costs per message in combination with limited interaction and presentation options are the reason it is being abandoned by marketers.

Tips for using QR codes in real estate

 Using QR Codes on real estate signs

There are two ways to do it. One is to use weather resistant stickers and the other is to integrate the QR code into the sign.

Sign using QR Code stickers	Sign with integrated QR code

Using QR codes on real estate signs at the property itself has it's advantages. Generally these signs clearly indicate the property is for sale with a contact telephone number for those who are interested, but little more useful information. This is where the QR code can play an important role by supplying pricing information, showing what the backyard and the interior layout looks like via images and giving information about the size and the asking price for the property. Additional benifits could be a direct call to the agent, ability to store this information on the phone and even suggesting other properties for sale in the near vicinity.

The dissadvantage of using stickers is they have to be weather proof which generally means easy to apply but difficult to remove, everytime the sign is reused a new QR code will need to be made and the old one removed or 'pasted over'. The advantage of a dynamic QR code is that it can be integrated into the sign using company colours and even styled with a logo. When the sign is used at a new property location, the same QR code is given the new instructions for the new property via a management console, it's as simple as that.

Estate agent 2.0

Ready to use free real estate solutions in the Netherlands

'FUNDA' is one of the few Dutch real estate databases that is open to the public via Internet. What is really cool is that their site is also mobile friendly. This means estate agents linked to funda can simply select the property url in the public on-line web site, then paste it into a web site QR code generator and have a ready to use mobile friendly real estate QR code for that property. It really is as simple as that.

By using QR codes on real estate signs and using it with online mobile friendly property databases it is possible to provide cost effective detailed property information on location and on demand. Either by using stickers or dynamic QR codes it become possible to have a unique for sale sign providing detailed information for a specific property.

Colourful QR Code solutions with QR4.

Using colour to create more attractive QR codes could be the trigger for it to be scanned or not by making the QR code stand out from the crowd.

Normal QR code	QR code with colour	Contrasted QR code	Colourized QR code

Other advantages are making the QR codes match company colour schemes to make it blend into the documents or media it is printed on for a more professional 'look and feel'. There are a few important things to keep in mind when using colours with QR codes because not all colour combinations will work, and even if some do, they may not work on older mobile devices or outdated QR Code Apps.

There is a very good reason QR codes are black and white, the reason is contrast. The bigger the difference in colour between the background and the data elements, the better is it to read. When it comes to the ultimate contrast, you cannot get better than black and white. Any other colour combination will have an effect on the contrast and thus the ability for scanner applications to read it successfully.

The golden rule when working with colours is to keep the background and foreground colours contrasting each other as much as possible. To do this we need to determine which colours 'oppose' each other and for this we can use a colour wheel.

Below is the QR code colour wheel, where 'S' is the start and 'E' is the end colour. The idea is try and choose an ending colour that is 180 degrees from your starting colour, as this should give the best results. As you choose ending colours closer to your starting colour, the contrast becomes smaller and this will effect the ability for applications to read your QR code successfully.

Wait, we are not finished yet!

This is about QR code scanner applications and the developers who build them as well as mobile devices with camera's.

Unfortunately not all mobile phone camera's are of the same quality and even more so for QR code scanner application developers. To date there are hundreds of different QR code scanners for mobile phones that can be downloaded for 'free' from a variety of on-line application stores. Our findings are that most of them lack severely in the ability to decode QR codes correctly. So do not 'just download the first best app you find!'

Having said this, I am assuming that the developers do honour the ISO specification for QR codes, and here it is clearly stated it should (must) be black and white. So who is at fault if your colour QR code cannot be read, you are !

The good old times of QR codes

Older mobile devices like my 'mini-fridge' Nokia N95 that came with pre-installed qr code readers use a trick that is still used by developers today, although it should not be required anymore....Let me explain, it's called being colourblind and this has a big impact on the ability to detect and decode QR code images.

In the past storage and processing on mobile devices was a lot more limited than the smart devices of today and some cleaver tricks were developed to make this work for QR code scanners. They used image conversion from colour to black and white before processing the image. Why? Because black and white images are digitally smaller because each pixel does not have any colour information. Because the image was smaller it could be processed faster. Today this method is still in use with some readers and this has a whole new influence on our colour wheel.

Suddenly we can see why some QR code readers may not be able to read the QR codes if we take into consideration the requirement for 'maximum contrast' we can clearly see that the selections of colours we can use in the 'colour world' could bee seen as the same 'shade of gray' in the 'black and white world. If we want to make colour QR codes for a 'black and white world' our colour contrast selection becomes even more limited.

Acoording to the specifications

QR codes should be black and white only, so taking our colour wheel and converting it to black and white based on a 50% conversion threshhold we see how a single bit image processor would see the colours. 

The good news about colour QR codes

As new generations of smart phones are replacing the older mobile devices in the market, the problem of gray-scale QR code interpretors should become less, but until the day that all smart-phones have perfect camera's and developers write ultimate intelligent QR decoding software and applications, this developer will still always test the QR codes with old legacy decoder systems. As final itam and maybe the most important tip is to always test the QR codes you create as best you can with different QR reader applications and with different types of smart-phones. Just because it works on your device is no guarantee it will work for everyone.

Colour QR Code generator list

• Website URL
• Send Email
• SMS message
• Direct Calling
• Contact Information
• Text Message
• WiFi Access
• Branding and personalization
• Geo location

Most of the QR code generators here at QR4 support the use of colour and other advanced features such as transparency and opacity. You are welcome to test generating QR codes in colour for yourself. Remember that the secret to success is to test your QR codes thoroughly. Should you have any comments, questions or need advice about using colour with QR codes, please contact us.