In my earlier post on the short code enabling business, “Too Early & Too Late?” (click here), I outlined why I think this is a segment on very weak footing. Short code solutions are an easy way to enable print and media advertising to the mobile web space. But its time may have already come and gone.

The real opportunity for these short code enablers is to quickly shift to a more powerful technical solution, otherwise known as QR code technology.

QR codes are two dimensional bar codes which have quietly grown significant first in Japan and Korea, and now in Germany, Italy and Spain—all dense users of mobile internet. They were invented by a Japanese company in 1994. Showing up mostly as thumbnails on magazines and newspapers, they work as quick, automatic links between print and on-line mobile media that don’t require a customer to type in an internet address or a short code key word combination. Any object, machine or advertising space can be engaged and serve as a prompt to a consumer. Simple as click and connect. Watch it here

Physical size of the QR code is irrelevant. Northwest Airlines in Japan utilized QR codes on full size out door billboards 30 ft up from sidewalks which could be viewed and clicked on from across a street. Alternatively QR codes can be small thumbnails in “hand held” publications like La Gazetta Sportiva in Italy (think Sporting News) or Germany’s Welt Kompakt national newspaper (think USAToday). With just the click of a phone’s camera to engage the code and connect with a specified link, such codes are very compelling and simple to engage, even fun given their simplicity.

They provide multiple functionalities enabling options such as click to call, links to maps, code conversion to images such as a gif file, constantly changing splash or mobile web destination pages driven even by personalization—think every time you click on the code you are being sent to a different page, or information being delivered depending on location and time. QR cores are the singular means to engage context without “big brother” monitoring your every location and while remaining fully in control over your opt in issues. High calorie GPS may do more in an advertising context but at what costs? QR codes are much more “low calorie” with the user still maintaining a degree of control.

Technically QR codes provide greater reporting capability on the type of action delivered to the consumer clicking on the code. Mobile carriers can view what handset class or specific handset type are engaging on what codes, thus providing even greater metric use planning for advertisers and brands that short codes solutions can. Plus QR codes have greater back-end capability. Click destinations and resulting actions can be varied and changed based on time parameters, geo-location of click, number of clicks, or even immediate response needs of brands or advertisers such as end of sports events, natural disasters or other time defined-sensitive actions.

Such time-shifting and channel-changing is impossible through fixed, print based short codes. Short codes vary only through the frequency of a change in print/media ads, placements within different channels, print or media properties, or frequency of issue. Hence, an ad in Cosmo remains fixed in its functionality until the next monthly edition is published and released. These factors combined with the ever increasing penetration of SmartPhones in the US market and its mobile ‘big screen’ availability will begin to pressure and shape this market away from text code functionality.

As to potential timing of QR codes entering the US market—they are already here in trial scenarios. A fledgling start up, Mobile Discovery, recently completed a semester long trial at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Partnering with Gannett, QVC, Reuters, local restaurants, clubs, apartment complexes and others, QR codes were engaged across the campus by students using any and all mobile operators in the forms of CPG trials, daily sweepstakes, bus arrival timing (click on the code, see how long your bus wait is), and editorial content engagement as examples.

The short code based solution is then fairly rigid as compared to QR codes. This is a critical KPI differential. From an advertiser’s perspective, the measure of who is actually reading the ad in relation to the request is murky with short codes as compared to QR codes. Without access to handset ownership–which sounds quite intrusive in the US for both consumers and carriers–who knows whether the request is appropriately targeted to the segmented reader of an ad. Think sitting in the dentist’s office reading an Esquire 9 months old and responding to a short code ad, and you get a sense of whether that was read by a woman, man, or teen age boy. QR codes being inherently connected to the handset data become far more valuable as a measured metric for the advertising world.

Most of you are aware of the ubiquitous bar codes used everywhere. What you might not know is that is there is a standards body behind the UPC Codes you see everywhere. Some argue that the QR codes won’t take off because it is a proprietary solution and has associated licensing fees, etc. [Seems in talking to a short code vendor in researching this article I was incorrectly steered towards believing that QR codes were proprietary, and had a license fee associated with them. My error, there is no proprietary fee, and are free to use.] Thus buttressing the following: My view is if that was the case Qualcomm would not exist today if IPRs were a major hurdle in technology adoption. Since QR codes are free, that barrier doesn’t exist. I”ve also heard that the bar code standards body, specifically GS1 US, which is assigns GS1 UPC codes to companies/organizations in the USA, and it’s associates the industrial/Commercial EDI, Uniform Communication Standard (UCS) (used in the grocery industry), and VICS EDI (used in the general merchandise retail industry) are the most likely source of a non-proprietary standard reflective of the UPC code, which could be used in the mobile segment. Bunk. Who has more impact in this segment, two trilllion dollar global industries or a standards body? Standardization issues and IPR commercial models will not stop this growing phenomenon.

If short code enablers are to remain competitive and grow within the mAdvert segment, they need to either partner or build such functionality into their service portfolio. If not, they will find themselves outmaneuvered by QR code enabling companies that already ‘grandfather’ short code technology into their solution. In the end it will be a better way to build engagement with consumers enabling them to do much more than they can now. Let’s see how well the segment reacts.