The proliferation of the Internet and mobile devices has opened up exciting new channels for brand advertising. Traditional media, such as television and newspapers, were until recently only able to engage a person in a monologue. With the growth of broadband and technologies such as digital imaging, these traditional channels have evolved into interactive media with ability to engage consumers in two-way communication delivering immediate gratification. Some example of such interactive communication and product selling involves the use of camera phones and 2D symbologies, also known as 2D bar codes.
In Japan and Korea for instance, the proliferation of camera phones embedded with the 2D symbologies reader has led to a wide variety of new, consumer-oriented applications, aimed at simplifying the access of information and the creation of innovative mobile services that espouses the concept of ubiquitous computing - user-centric services and applications that adapt to the device owner's profile and current location. Some of these services include mobile e-ticketing where the consumers receive a m-ticket on his device for venue access authentication, up-to-date mobile news and stock information retrieval, e-learning over the mobile, querying time-schedule of buses, personalised multimedia stamp with greetings, TV media selling and mobile opinion polls, etc.
A typical scenario will see a mobile user capturing a 2D symbol placed in magazines, posters, newspapers, billboards or even the television using an appropriate reader installed on the phone. Upon capturing the image, the reader will decode the encoded information and connects the user to the service or product information in question. Depending on the encoded information, the reader would either connect the phone browser directly to a web resource or invoked the built-in media player if it is receiving a stream media of the advertised product or services. Such intuitive "one snap" connection solution provides a direct and effective introduction point to services which in the past would have required the user to key-in a long URL address on the mobile device and possibly multiple loading of pages before getting to the right content. For brand owners and businesses the ability to reach its targeted customers on a device which is always with the consumers offers a very compelling proposition for the brand owners and businesses. Also, the fact that this is an opt-in service access solution makes it much more acceptable for most consumers since they are in control of the entire process.
IDA Technology Group has over the last few months undertaken a study into two of the more commonly used ISO standard 2D symbologies; QR code and Datamatrix code, and conducted various tests on available readers to understand the readiness of the technology and handsets attributes needed for its adoption in our local market. Our findings indicate that majority of the handset readers are either embedded into the firmware of the handsets or only available on high end smart phones devices. We also recognise that the market will continue to see a niche number of 2D symbologies being adopted across the industries without a single de-facto standard especially in the GSM world until we see more standardisation effort in the mobile 2D Barcode area, which will in turn resulted in user friendly built-in barcode reader and capability enhancing features such as the macro mode commonly found in the Japanese market. While the encoding algorithms for various 2D symbologies have been standardised, there has yet to be any consensus on the definition of the encoded data for specific applications within various industries. As with XML and other data exchange technologies, the value of mobile 2D barcode will grow significantly as trading partners within the same industry begin to agree upon data definition standards.
From an earlier request for participation on the 2D barcode technology initiative (dated 17 Oct, 2005), IDA in conjunction with a number of mobile 2D barcode solution vendors have been engaging the industry in promoting the service potential of the technology. In some instances, simple application prototypes were created to demonstrate the feasibility of 2D barcode services ranging from mobile ticketing, mobile parking, ID authentication, location-based services, bill payment, and etc. To date, SISTIC has publicly announced their intention to issue mobile 2D barcode tickets for online transactions starting April 2006. A number of trials between the various solution providers and key partners are also on-going with the potential for launch in the near future.
IDA recognises that the market will continue to see a niche number of 2D barcodes being adopted across the industries without a single de-facto standard especially in the GSM world. In view of that, IDA has through one of its funding initiatives supported TagIT, a local 2D code solution provider to develop a mobile internet interaction platform (MI2P) that serves as a reference architecture platform to support multiple 2D codes suitable for potential commercial and government services.
IDA also intend to work with interested industry partners through the ITSC to define the 2D barcode data definition specification that would addresses the data exchange format needed for the various common mobile services access methods. Interested parties please contact IDA at
mw@ida.gov.sg.