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Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

5 Ways QR Codes Could Shake Up the 2012 Election [22Sep11] - 0 views

  • With millions of potential voters using mobile devices, strategists would be remiss to write off QR codes as a risky early-adopter consumer trend untranslatable to the political space.
  • “One of the exciting things about 2012 is that we have the opportunity to close the loop between online activities and real-world events,” he adds. “We’re seeing individuals rely on their phones, and QR codes present an optimal framework for that. There’s an opportunity for campaigns to reach out to mobile-savvy individuals and transmit a message that will lead to an activation.”
  • There is great potential in branding candidates, fundraising and collecting supporters’ data using QR technology.
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  • This cycle, QR codes could serve as an on-the-street campaign that instantly recruits supporters to rallies, speeches, visibility events and canvassing.
  • The key is to make sure the QR code allows for action – such as connecting with a supporter in another state, pledging to canvass or phone bank, engaging candidates or celebrity surrogates, or receiving cool merch.
  • Instead that canvasser could solicit $5 donations via a direct mobile QR transaction
  • QR codes could be a chance to get creative: Provide access to exclusive content, such as funny or moving videos, tweets, pics and merch from a celeb. With more codes emerging that integrate specific design art, celeb supporters will also have access to tailor-made QR images specific to their sentiments and brand identities.
  • Like past inclusion of Twitter and Facebook handles on promotional materials, by election day 2012, QR codes will be a cultural norm.
  • By regionalizing the QR code’s look and the reward, the merch turns making a statement into a measurable social action for like-minded individuals
  • QR codes could be a valuable tool for campaigns looking to tap into voting blocs once thought difficult to reach.
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    5 Ways QR Codes Could Shake Up the 2012 Election: http://t.co/flQHfQzd
Dan R.D.

And Now You Have One More Reason To Ignore QR Codes [21Oct11] - 0 views

  • canning that mysterious QR code sticker that someone stuck on the wall in a tame but oh-so-technophilic act of modern vandalism.
  • Instead, the nasties are using QR codes to lure people into downloading Android malware. While some users are likely to assume that QR codes are unique to the Android market and thus be comfortable scanning them, these codes actually take you to an Android install package hosted on some third-party server. The QR code itself isn’t bad — but the link it’s obfuscating is.
  • Once downloaded, the dirty app (which, in the most recent case, was a hacked version of the Russian ICQ client, Jimm) begins firing off text messages to a premium number. Each text it sends (without your knowledge) sets you back around $5+. You can find an outline of the method by Kaspersky Labs here.
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  • It’s not hard to imagine how this concept could get nasty quick. Users, for the most part, would trust a QR code the same way they just a link on a company’s own website. Take a QR-enabled ad on a public wall, for example; how simple would it be for the “hacker” to simply slap a sticker of his nefarious QR code on top of yours? Would anyone notice?
Dan R.D.

Making Money From QR Codes with Hipscan [29Jul11] - 0 views

  • We've written extensively about QR codes, including a story that ran earlier this week about using them as a virtual tourism activity. But an announcement from Hipscan.com caught our attention about how you can actually use these curious codes to generate hard cash money. Hipscan's Web site can be used by anyone to generate their own custom QR code, and what is interesting is how you can alter the referring location that the code leads to quite easily, with just a few mouse clicks and keystrokes.
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

Like Dwolla, SCVNGR is Building Local Mobile Payments Groundswell With LevelUp [24Nov11] - 0 views

  • Location-based social game mechanics are not inherently transactional. That is where the company's newest product, LevelUp comes into play. Take merchant offers, location, game mechanics and make then transactional and you have an idea what LevelUp is trying to do in the mobile payments space.
  • LevelUp is the path and it dives deep into the fundamental nature of payments, merchants and how people interact with money.
  • How Does LevelUp Work?
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  • Levelup is a mobile payments system at its core. It currently has 100,000 users across four cities (Boston, New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco) with 600 merchants signed up.
  • The basic payment structure is that LevelUp provides the merchants with an Android smartphone with a QR code reader and consumers with the LevelUp app that has a personalized QR code that effectively acts as the interface to their wallet
  • Users tie their debit/credit cards to the QR code in LevelUp's app. The security behind that is what could be considered a triple-blind token system. No actual payment information is being stored on the device (unlike the Google Wallet, for instance) and there are three steps from the phone to the bank to obfuscate where the payment is actually coming from.
  • Then there are the deals and game mechanics. When merchants sign up, they are prompted to give buyers a credit.
  • The more times that people pay with LevelUp, the more opportunities for credit to be accumulated (hence, the notion of leveling up to a new offer).
  • About 45% of users return to pay full price at the merchant and users on average use LevelUp about twice per week. The location system comes in by seeing on a map in the app what merchants close to you are using the service and what kind of deals they have.
  • "With LevelUp being transactional, we wanted to make it as fundamentally simple as humanely possible," Priebatsch said. "Frankly you should never have to do anything other than just pay with it and good things should happen to you and that should make you want to keep using it."
  • LevelUp has a certain type of groundswell that other local mobile payments options do not. In that way, LevelUp's closest kindred spirit is more likely to be Dwolla than it is something like Square or Google Wallet
  • There has been talk of SCVNGR being acquired but it is more likely that the company will eventually make partnerships with other ground-swell mobile payments companies like Dwolla.
  • What LevelUp and Dwolla have done is created a local ecosystem of merchants willing to use mobile payments in their communities. This is the bottom-up approach and, as of yet, is proving to be as effective than the top-down approach taken by companies like Google and PayPal.
  • What are the pain points for mobile payments? For the consumer, it is having the app and the ability to tie it to a payments process. LevelUp cuts down on the pain points by having the ability to tie the wallet to a debit/credit card through its triple-blind token system and using QR codes.
  • According to Priebatsch, QR codes are not necessary to the process. Any interface (like NFC) will do but the QR code is working for now and LevelUp can work with any device that can project a black and white image
  • This is where Priebatsch starts to get deep into the nature of payments and the notion that money is nothing but a form of information that transfers from one point to another. Priebatsch's grand plan, that translates well to a five to 10 years down the road for the company, is to bring the payments process down to "interchange zero" where the cost of moving that information from Point A to Point B is next to nothing.
  • Here is the philosophy, according to Priebatsch:
  • People will eventually make the flow of money more and more efficient, and the cost of transferring information, or money as information, will eventually converge to zero. This concept is something that we describe as "interchange zero". And as money flows frictionless-ly, all sorts of great things happen around that. You get to pay less at the store because the business does not have to pay interchange on top of their prices.
  • The really fascinating thing with that, is that a new monetization model needs to be found for the payments industry because somebody needs to make the $50 billion dollars a year to actually support the whole thing. And I believe, and I have a game mechanics background, that the way that that money is going to be replaced, as the idea of me paying you to just move money back and forth goes away, the way that people are going to make money on payments is taking the information inherent in payments and applying a series of game mechanics.
  • To create a series of actions which get consumers to spend more and come back more often. And this help the business make more money off of each transaction. So the payment, as a utility, will be frictionless, and the money will flow to the company, enterprise, person, organization who can add the most value to the transaction."
Jan Wyllie

QR Codes set a blingin - Is this the coin of the future? - 0 views

  • The coins will be limited edition and will be produced in silver as well as gold. The silver 5€ and gold 10€ will be issued on June 22, 2011.
  • The Royal Dutch Mint has produced what is the first QR coded coin to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the mint in Utrecht.
  • The Royal Dutch Mint has produced what is the first QR coded coin to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the mint in Utrecht.
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  • The Royal Dutch Mint has produced what is the first QR coded coin to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the mint in Utrecht
Dan R.D.

Will NFC Eliminate QR Codes Entirely? [28Sep11] - 0 views

  • QR code technology arrived late to North America for numerous reasons, and with Near Field Communication (NFC) fast emerging, it is a valid concern that it may not tip the adoption needle in time to establish itself as a household communication tool.
  • With the release of the Google Wallet, Google has been building a lot of support for NFC. This may explain why they replaced QR codes with NFC for Google Places. Another reason may be because the stickers they distributed to the retailers were intended to be permanent, in which case NFC makes more sense. They may be a bit ahead of the market on this, but if they are distributing millions of these stickers across North America, it pays to plan ahead. Following their announcement, a vast number of articles surfaced with some variation of “QR codes are dead”. This in my opinion was a bit excessive considering Google Places is the only implementation where they made the changeover.
  • Getting away from Google, let’s briefly look at the expected rate of NFC adoption. Smartphones have been available on this continent for at least 4 years and they currently hold approximately 33% of the market. Google’s Nexus S is one of the first phones to be available with NFC technology and it was released only this spring. Blackberry will start releasing models this fall, and Apple has yet to confirm whether they will include NFC support in the iPhone 5. It’s not unreasonable to expect NFC gaining mass adoption no sooner than 2-3 years.
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  • For any of you still thinking QR codes are a fad, I challenge you to do the following: think of them as hyperlinks or buttons rather than widgets. They are intended to connect real world communication elements with interactive, rich media content. In order for them to be truly effective and gain mass acceptance, they must accomplish the following:
  • 1. Be relevant in their context2. Provide added value3. Deliver mobile friendly content
Dan R.D.

7 Interesting QR Code Statistics QR Disc Blog [14Jun11] - 0 views

shared by Dan R.D. on 06 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • 4,500% is the increase in the number of scans in Q1 2011 versus the same period last year 1,200% is the growth in the scanning of QR Codes over the last 6 months of 2010 87% of people are scanning QR Codes to get additional product information 68% of the QR Code scans come from iPhones 64% of scans are done by women 50% of Americans will have a smartphone by December 2011 25% of people scanning QR Codes are between 35 and 44 years old
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

Three Ways NFC Technology Will Create a Brand New Form of Social Media Engagement | Soc... - 0 views

  • As the number of smartphone users continues to grow at an incredible rate, the challenge facing many retail brands is to continue to find ways of utilising smartphone technologies to effectively connect and engage with consumers. In recent months many retail brands have focused on smartphone features that integrate with social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare, to not only create something new and unique as part of the consumer journey, but to also take advantage of the fact that through successfully integrating social media with the overall brand experience, the likelihood of fans and customers “sharing” branded content and increasing brand visibilty in the social space is also increased; something that more and more companies are continually striving to achieve across multiple social media and online PR campaigns. Interestingly, something that an increasing number of people are now starting to talk about when looking at the ways smartphones are shaping consumer and brand day-to-day lives, is Near Field Communication technologies (NFC) and the possibilities that they present.
  • In short, Near Field Communication technology enables smartphone users to gain instant access to digital data from another NFC enabled handset or NFC tag simply by placing or waving their phone next to the NFC tag. Much like scanning a QR code or connecting via Bluetooth, the tag then sends content automatically between the handset and the tag - be it a Foursquare-style check-in at a record store or access to an exclusive in-store promotion.
  • Although at first this may not seem all that different to what we have seen recently with the introduction of QR codes, the possibilities we are seeing for NFC technology are far greater. So much so, that we're not only seeing an increasing number of smartphone brands integrating the technology into their latest handsets, we are also starting to see large named brands such as Google, Visa and MasterCard getting involved at what is a very early stage.
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  • In light of this, below are three reasons as to why we will soon start to see NFC technologies appearing more and more:
  • 1. Real-life Facebook “Likes”
  • 2. Quick payments
  • 3. Ease of use
  • Although we are still very much in the early development stages with the use of this kind of technology, as the number of smartphones with NFC enabled technology continues to grow as well as the number of credit card companies jumping on board, it is surely only a matter of time before we start to see more and more people using their smartphones to pay for their morning coffee. Similarly to QR codes and location-based services, much of the success of NFC technology will depend on the adoption of big-name brands to not only raise consumer awareness but to ensure that the benefits for customers to use NFC as part of their browsing experience are unique, rewarding, relevant and appealing. Additionally, those brands working alongside a creative tech PR agency that are able to effectively integrate NFC smartphone technologies into their overall social media and marketing campaigns will almost certainly be at the forefront of a whole new type of real-world social media engagement.  
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

Clover breaks stealth with a powerhouse team to shake up peer-to-peer payments - The Ne... - 0 views

  • The space for mobile payments has heated up really fast over the past couple of years. One thing that we’ve started to see more of lately are applications that focus more on peer-to-peer payments versus something that you’d use to see a business. With PayPal implementing NFC, Dwolla providing software solutions to hardware problems and Venmo firmly in between all of it, the space is getting crowded quite fast.
  • Funds can be added to Clover via any credit card, but not directly from your bank or PayPal.
  • If you want to Pay, there are 2 ways to go about it. You can either pay a contact directly, or you can create a QR code that is then scanned by another Clover user to accept funds from you. This makes it easy to split a bill at a restaurant, for instance, but it also leaves the door open to long-distance transactions. In time, according to some grayed-out options in the UI, you’ll also be able to pay via SMS or email.
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  • Requests for money work the same way. You can choose to ask in person, which creates a QR code, or you can send a request to one of your contacts. Again, SMS and email-based requests appear to be coming at a later time.
  • To withdraw, you can do immediate transfers to your PayPal, or a bank transfer in 2-3 days. Obviously, if you’re using PayPal, you’re going to get a fee tacked onto transactions. Bank transfers might have them as well, depending on your particular bank’s methods.
  • We do know that there’s an API in the works, which will bring payment options to more apps and websites.
  • “…it’s not about what you can’t do with PayPal but rather what you don’t do with PayPal.  Over the past decade, PayPal has done a great job transforming how people think about payments, but most PayPal users don’t routinely use the service to pay each other for lunch, drinks, etc. from their mobile phone.”
  • Presently Clover is sitting on a $5.5 million investment from Andreesen Horowitz, Sutter Hill Ventures and Morado Venture Partners.
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

MasterCard tests NFC payments at movie theaters - Payments - Mobile Commerce Daily - 0 views

  • The technology is run through an application call QkR that users can download for iPhone or Android devices. Australian movie chain Hoyts is being used for the test program.
  • “MasterCard is constantly looking for ways to improve the consumer payment experience by making life easier, and initiatives such as QkR have been developed for these reasons,” said Matt Barr, head of market development and innovation at MasterCard Australia, Purchase, NY.
  • “Hoyts decided to partner with MasterCard for this pilot because they recognize the benefits of innovative payment applications in enhancing the overall cinema experience for moviegoers,” he said.
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  • Consumers who visit premier Hoyts-operated cinemas in Australia can pay for items while in their seats by scanning a mobile bar code. Each seat in the theater has a mobile bar code placed on the arm rest. To pay for an item, users open the app on their phones and scan the QR code. They can then select food and drink items to buy and have it sent to them at their seats. Moviegoers can also enter a six-digit code located above the mobile bar code to activate the app or tap a NFC-enabled smartphone over the arm rest to pay. Users who pay via the QkR app must link their MasterCard accounts by entering their information into the app.
  • The new NFC initiative is part of MasterCard Lab’s work that is focusing on ramping up the company’s work with mobile payments.
  • “Australian consumers are renowned for their love of innovation technologies, which is why MasterCard selected this market for the pilot,” Mr. Barr said.
  • Payment war With similar mobile wallet initiatives from Google and PayPal, the mobile payment space is expected to heat up in 2012.
  • However, MasterCard is playing a unique card in mobile payments by bringing mobile bar codes and apps into play.
  • PayPal’s new mobile point-of-sale solution is also slated to gain traction this year with big box retailers Home Depot and Office Depot rolling it out to stores (see story).
  • One of the challenges technologies such as Google Wallet have struggled with is that it is only available on Sprint Nexus S 4G mobile phones, which leaves out a majority of the mobile phone industry.
  • Since the QkR app is available on iPhone and Android devices, the app hits a majority of the smartphone market.
  • MasterCard is running an NFC pilot program at movie theaters in Australia that lets consumers pay for food and drink items via their mobile devices.
  • For MasterCard, one of the biggest hurdles will be educating both consumers and companies about the technology, but the initiative is proof that the payment company is placing big bets on mobile payments.
  • “MasterCard is consistently striving to deliver the next generation in payments,” Mr. Barr said. “Specifically in this pilot, mobile payments and making life easier by enhancing the in cinema experience,” he said.
Paul Simbeck-Hampson

Qr Codes For Golf Courses | Simbeck Hampson - 1 views

  • Life is silly, the whole world is damn mad, bonkers infact, nothing surprises me anymore, putting scannable 2D codes on pimpley golf balls seems so normal, glad you pointed it out - rant over! :)
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

How Amex, Foursquare, and Others Advanced the Digital Wallet in 2011 | ClickZ - 0 views

  • The so-called digital wallet made important strides in 2011, sometimes eliminating the logistical need for paper vouchers, mobile apps, QR codes, and even cell phones.
  • At times this transition seems to be sneaking up on us. Earlier this month, thousands of merchants nationwide didn't know they had gained foot traffic and sales thanks to American Express and Foursquare. Amex rewarded consumers who synced their credit cards with their Foursquare accounts with $10 back if they spent the same at local businesses after checking in with the geo-social app. That effort followed up a successful post-Black Friday stint dubbed "Small Business Saturday," when Amex users checking in on Foursquare could get a $25 credit if they spent $25 with a local merchant.
  • Jake Furst, a business development director at New York-based Foursquare, said there was little to no organizational outreach to local businesses. "The merchants didn't necessarily know what was happening as we drove customers to their locations," he explained. "Small Business Saturday was a huge success. We got a ton of interest from Foursquare users and Amex card holders that didn't know about Foursquare yet."
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  • While the aforementioned offers have expired, merchants can set up new Foursquare check-in deals via Amex's "Go Social" self-service center for SMBs.
  • Here's how the Amex-Foursquare marriage works for consumers: Sync Amex card with Foursquare account online. Check in at a location. Tap a "redeem offer" button. Pay with Amex card. Get a Foursquare push notification about the money-back reward (see image) within moments after the card is swiped by the merchant.
  • Swipely has begun working with 150 merchants in Boston, its launch market. The start-up offers consumers the chance to sync a credit card to its loyalty program. From there, whenever they spend money at a participating merchant, they can receive a reward or discount. Swipely supplies local businesses with point-of-sale signage and materials to promote the program.
  • Angus Davis, Swipely CEO, said his product should attract consumers and businesses alike because of its usability. There's no need for a smartphone app, much less a printed voucher, he said, in order for shoppers to get rewarded for retail store visits.
  • "Consumers don't have to change the way they behave in order to check in," Davis said. "Nor do they have to change the way they pay by scanning a QR code [or] using newfangled technology. Our program employs technology that everyone already has and uses."
  • He added, "For the local merchant, the program doesn't require any changes in the store. They don't have to upgrade hardware, install software, implement any special cards, or re-train their staff."
  • The 33-year-old CEO said his company would expand to New York, San Francisco, and other major cities in the first half of the upcoming year. "I do think that 2012 is a very ripe time for disruption," Davis said, "especially as the payment space interacts with Main Street merchants."
  • Other noteworthy developments as digital wallets came into focus during 2011: March/April:Groupon and LivingSocial launch "GrouponNow" and "Instant Deals", respectively, which allow consumers to buy time-sensitive offers with one click on their smart phones. To use the mobile commerce feature, users need to input their credit cards into their daily deals accounts. May 9: Scvngr struck a partnership with American Express to make redeeming LevelUp deals easier for consumers. Amex members who buy the deals need only use their cards while making a purchase to get the discount. As is the case with Swipely, it's not necessary to show the store clerk a paper voucher, barcode, or message on a mobile screen. May 26: Google introduced Google Wallet, which lets consumers pay for Google Offers and other items through their Google account. The Wallet mobile app works with credit card users for Citi, MasterCard, and First Data. Aug. 1: Verizon partnered with Amex to serve as the mobile carrier's digital wallet platform. The telecom was one of the first in its competitive space to create its own digital wallet.
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

Starbucks Augmented Reality App Animates Holiday Cups [08Nov11] - 0 views

  • Starbucks is launching its first major augmented reality app this holiday season that will let customers animate their coffee cups with their smartphones.
  • Starbucks Cup Magic launches for iPhone and Android devices in the U.S. next Tuesday. (In Canada, just the iPhone version will launch.) As demonstrated in the video above, the app works by pointing your phone’s camera at the company’s red holiday season coffee cups and 47 additional objects, such as bags of coffee, on display at Starbucks retail locations.
  • Doing so will produce animations involving five characters — an ice skater, a squirrel, a boy and a dog sledding and a fox — on your screen. You can also interact with the characters. For instance, if you tap the boy on the sled he does a somersault. Those who activate all five characters can qualify to win an as-yet-unnamed prize.
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  • The app also includes traditional and social sharing capabilities. You can the send ecards as well as holiday offers from Starbucks, among other things.
  • The object, says Alexandra Wheeler, vp-global digital marketing for Starbucks, is to “surprise and delight” customers during the holiday season.
  • Although Starbucks experimented with an AR app years ago in an ad, Wheeler says this is the first major AR push by the company. The effort follows some other recent AR programs from marketers including an app from Nivea featuring Rihanna and an Amazon app that lets you point your phone at objects and then buy them.
  • Cup Magic, created by Blast Radius, caps off a year of successful mobile implementations by Starbucks. The brand launched a mobile payment app in January that has been used in more than 20 million transactions and a QR code program designed, like Starbucks Cup Magic, to enhance the in-store brand experience.
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