QR codes are starting to pop up in more and more places. From outdoor billboards (see the image at right) to Twitter avatars to magazine ads, the proliferation of smartphones is helping fuel a huge increase in QR codes.

So what exactly are QR codes? In short, QR codes are 2D barcodes that contain embedded information – a website URL, contact information, a link to a Twitter account or other information about a product or service. You can scan a QR code by using a QR reader on your smartphone or iPod Touch. I like ScanLife (a free download for  Blackberry, Android, iOS and Windows Phones) as it allows you to scan QR codes as well as standard barcodes, but there are dozens of free and paid QR scanners out there. I actually scanned the standard barcode on a children’s book the other day and it brought me to an info page that talked about the book and gave me links to purchase the book online.

Arkansas’s Tourism office started utilizing QR codes in their 2010 Tour Guide and in print ads this year. If you scan the QR code embedded in their ad (click for a larger version), you’ll be redirected to a page on Arkansas Tourism’s website that gives you more information about things to do and places to go in The Natural State. In fact, if you look through Arkansas’ 2010 Tour Guide (and presumably their 2011 guide) there are QR codes sprinkled throughout that give the reader more information about the page they’re reading – an excellent way to extend the print experience to online.

Another great example is this Ryan Adams concert poster. If you scan the QR code, it brings you to a landing page where you can download a free live version of one of his songs and it also features a link to buy tickets to Ryan Adams concerts through TicketMaster.

Those are just a handful of examples of how some companies are starting to use QR codes to extend users’ experience from print or outdoor to the web. Smartphones and QR codes can offer businesses the ability to provide more and more targeted information to consumers in spaces that are traditionally space-limited like outdoor advertising, signage or print ads.

There are even people who have started putting QR codes on their business cards. Simply scan the code and you can easily add the person’s contact info to your address book. That’s so much easier than coming back from a conference and having to manually add dozens of business cards into your contact list. In fact, if you scan the QR code on the left, you can add my contact information to your address book.

Have you seen any interesting examples of QR codes?

Bit.ly, Goo.gl, budurl.com, tinyurl.com. You’ve seen URL shorteners and in recent years, their popularity has exploded with the advent of Twitter and having to get a message across (with a link!) in less than 140 characters. TinyURL.com is one of the original URL shorteners and I used it years ago when trying to send Google Map directions to friends. In the past 18-24 months, the huge growth of Twitter has really fueled the growth of URL shorteners. Since Twitter only allows you to post 140 characters at a time, your URLs need to be as short as possible to leave room for messaging. Here are some features and drawbacks fromsom positives and negatives of some of the leading URL shorteners below:

Bit.ly:

Bit.ly is the most popular URL shortener online today, and for good reason. After bursting onto the scene just a few short years ago, Bit.ly has not been content to sit still for long. They took over as the default URL shortener on Twitter (until Twitter’s proprietary t.co shortener took over a few months ago) and they keep coming up with reasons for people to keep using them. From their easy to access and robust stats to their simple to use API to the inclusion of QR codes, Bit.ly makes using their service very easy.

Features:

• One of the shortest URL shorteners. Since . The minimum length of a Bit.ly link is just 19 characters! That only takes up about 13% of your tweet (140).
• Easy to view click stats: Simply add a + to the end of any Bit.ly URL (http://bit.ly/SocMedrlgy+). You can easily see how many clicks your link received and where those clicks are coming from.
  • The stats even show you how many times your link was retweeted and shared on Facebook.
• Allows for easy customization of shortened URLs: (bit.ly/b4yn9p turns into http://bit.ly/SocMedrlgy) easily.
• Allows for link bundling: Let’s say you’re sending 10 links to some coworkers to look at some research you’ve been doing. You can bundle those links into 1 bit.ly bundle link so you don’t have to copy and paste 10 different links to each person.
• Bit.ly has a Pro option that is free and offers you the ability for your bit.ly links to be branded with your own custom shortened URL. For example, the New York Times uses nyti.ms, the Huffington Post uses huff.to. Just another way you can extend your brand and use a great URL shortener at the same time.
• Robust API that allows you to integrate your Bit.ly account to shorten URLs in many social media management applications like TweetDeck and TwitterFeed.
• Automatically creates a QR code: Bit.ly automatically creates a QR code for each and every shortened URL you create. This is hugely important as smartphones and QR codes are being used more each day.
  • Don’t know what QR codes are? Check out this good intro post for now. I’ll write up a post about QR codes soon too.

Shortfalls:

• Honestly, one of the only reasons I could think to not use Bit.ly is if you’re already using HootSuite or another social media management application that doesn’t allow you to use a third-party URL shortener.

Goo.gl:

Goo.gl is one of the newer URL shorteners. They originally launched exclusively for shortening links to Google-owned properties like YouTube, Google Maps and others, but recently opened up to shorten any link.

Features:

• One of the shortest URL shorteners. The minimum length of a Goo.gl link is just 19 characters! That only takes up about 13% of your tweet (140).
• Easy to view click stats: Follows the Bit.ly model of showing stats for each link by adding a + to the end of the URL (http://goo.gl/VdKMa+). You can easily see how many clicks your link received and where those clicks are coming from.
• Automatically creates a QR code: Just like Bit.ly (in fact, Bit.ly did it first), Goo.gl automatically creates a QR code for each and every shortened URL you create.

Shortfalls:

• Does not allow for customized URLs: http://goo.gl/VdKMa.
• Not used as widely as Bit.ly: This may not really be a negative, but it’s not used nearly as often as Bit.ly (check out this article on ReadWriteWeb all about the top shorteners)

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