I read this manifesto (link below) around the time it came out, but I totally missed the amazing discussion that came after. Indeed, at least two people pointed me to this discussion, it was so gripping.
Looking at the participants, it reads like a who’s who of the mobile 2Dcode world [hat tip to Paola]:
- WINKsite’s David Harper (whom I know)
- Kaywa’s Roger Fischer (CEO) and Jérôme Chevillat (whom I know)
- Semapedia’s Stan Wiechers
- Blogger Marc Fonteijn
- Shotcode’s Dennis Hattema
- Jukka Eklund
- even Scott Shaffer (whom I know), the real Vanilla Gorilla in this space, blessed the discussion with his presence 🙂
Way to go Tommi (whom I know, as well)!
Link: Tommi’s S60 applications blog
Anyway, here’s my 10-point manifesto about 2D barcodes, mimicking Guy Kawasaki’s famous presentation style. I wanted to publish this post on the day that the app becomes available, but I’ll be on vacation during 13-26 December. I hope the app becomes available during this time.
If I may summarize a bit one key thread in the discussion, since this is how I came to revisit this post: Dave and Roger were debating how one processes the URL shot from the code. Both companies make it easy for users to create websites and then generate 2D codes that contain the mobile site URL. I’ve written about this before.
The difference was that Dave, of WINKsite, believes that the reader needs to go straight to the URL without any intermediary, either a redirector or any sort of transcoder. Roger, of Kaywa, in contrast, has created a reader that first sends the phone browser to one of their sites after which the user selects to open the site (obviously, I’m not too clear on the concept). But, what is clear is that the user goes through an intermediary step via Kaywa. I think this intermediary step is a potential focal point for leveraging some business.
Which is better, I cannot say, since there are plusses and minuses to both, and one’s predilection balances a bit on where one is extracting the value, if I may put it that way. I say let the markets decide.
And I hope to revisit this fascinating topic soon, even though I’m just a spectator. 😛
Hi Charlie,
Thanks for the resume. Indeed it was an interesting debate and I hope it continues.
I was thinking about writing a 2D Barcode manifesto in english as well, after having written an article in german about it earlier.
For me the most pressing issue is to find a way of interoperability between existing companies. Let’s imagine everyone would use another SMS Standard or another Markup Language to code the Web. Would the Web thrive? would people use SMS? I doubt it.
The easiest way is the code itself – if every company in this space had chosen the same code, things would be easier. And as it easier to take an already existing standard that would either be Datamatrix or QR. I am and you are in favor of QR obviously and Asia demonstrates that this is working.
The other way – much more harder to achieve – is to define a Short Code Scheme which gives us interoperability. Basically it would come down to something similar like the EAN Barcode.
I am in favor of both and I even think both can be combined.
Best regards
Roger
Roger,
I sort of tend towards people or comapnies voting with adoption. It’s a sad way to get a ‘standard’, but it shows up all tried and tested, sort of.
I think, in reality, that’s how it will happen.
Thanks for visiting.
Tchau,
Charlie
I agree. It’s an adoption thing, but adoption is most often politics.
Now the question will be who is adopting what where?
Well, here is one carrier making a choice: http://www.chette.com/main/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=99&Itemid=1&pop=1&page=0#thecomments SMART has 22 million subscribers so great user base, will be interesting to see how their users end up using Nextcode’s mCode standard and decoder.