Archive for September, 2007
Posted by shor
I’ll admit I sometimes forget certain website addresses.
And sometimes I’ll Google eBay rather than type ‘ebay.com’ into the address bar (apparently I’m not alone, it’s the 3rd most popular search query in the US)
Besides confirming that I’m lazy and have the memory of a goldfish, my point is, wouldn’t it be great if we didn’t have to type in URLs, especially when we’re outside of the house and have to use our cellphones to connect to the Internet?
When I was in San Francisco last month, I ended up walking around Japantown window-shopping the dozens of Japanese restaurants in the area. Which one was good? Which one served the best tonkotsu ramen? The best otoro sashimi? I had to know right then and there.
I tried using my cellphone to google a phrase like "best tonkotsu ramen San Francisco" but the top result was a Yelp listing from San Mateo which is nowhere near Japantown! Next, I entered my current address and "tonkotsu ramen" into Yelp’s search bar. Oops, I made a spelling mistake, typing tonkatsu instead of tonkotsu… Grrr…
So after a while of this, I realize this mobile search thing isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. It’s often clunky, inconvenient and you look an idiot when wielding a stylus or madly thumb-typing while outside of a restaurant.
Imagine if I could simply whip out my cellphone, point it at the restaurant as I walked past and be taken to a review of their restaurant.
Wishful thinking?
Nope.
QR Codes in Japan
Our friends over in Japan have been using their cellphone cameras to bypass URLs for a long time. Almost every new cellphone in Japan comes pre-installed with software that reads a barcode format known as QR Code - Quick Response Code. Originally created in 1994 for car parts inventory management, QR Codes have been used in Japanese marketing since 2000, yet it has only been in recent years that their popularity has really taken off.
With a QR reader installed, Japanese cellphone users simply wave their phone at a QR code and like magic, they are taken directly to the corresponding website.
A simple idea, but one that holds powerful implications.
With QR Codes, the Japanese have created a ‘hardlink’ or ‘physical hyperlink’ - a direct connection between the physical world and the Internet. Actually it goes beyond the ‘Net and just textual information, as QR Codes and their competing barcode cousins like Semacode and Microsoft’s HCCB can also store audio and video.
A QR Code for SEOmoz
Marketing With QR Codes
For many online marketers, there is constant hand-wringing when its comes to monitoring the performance of offline marketing. How many people who directly typed in our URL came to our site because of a billboard? If we simultaneously run a TV and print advertising, which is more effective at driving new users to our site? In Japan, marketers now have a brilliant way to gauge the interaction between offline and online media. There really seem to be limitless possibilities and the Japanese certainly have been experimenting:
Does your magazine article ask your readers to interact with the magazine’s online poll? Throw a QR Code into the article and you can count the number of direct referrals.
Stick a QR Code onto the side of a wine bottle’s label. As customers browse the wine selection at a liquor store, they’ll be able to see which food best matches with a particular shiraz or read the reviews for competing cabernet sauvignons.
QR Codes on a CD cover could link to a band’s website, allow you to purchase concert tickets or download a free ringtone - heck, link to the lyrics and end the arguments over the lyrics to the latest Fall Out Boy song.
In other words, QR Codes have created another point of contact with our consumers, one that could easily translate into another point of sale! What’s not to like about them?
QR Codes in the Western World
So when will these barcodes be as ubiquitous to Americans as they are to the Japanese?
Probably not for a long, long time.
Although there are promising signs elsewhere, with European mobile operator Orange recently asking cellular manufacturers to supply phones with QR code capabilities, without a convergence between American advertisers embracing the medium, cellular providers pre-installing QR readers and an educated public, QR Codes will be relegated to gimmicky promotions crafted by cutting edge agencies.
As a marketer, I’ve written this piece to help raise the awareness of hardlinking.
I’m tired of typing URLs.
The Yellow Pages Association put out a press release, supported by comScore data, that shows very healthy growth and usage of online yellow pages sites. Previously TMP Directional Marketing released findings from a consumer study that showed, among other things, that local search and yellow pages sites have some of the most qualified traffic on the Internet: 82 percent of users made a contact and 61 percent went on to make an in-store purchase.
There are few people in the world that know more about how Google works than Matt Cutts, and he’s here to help us separate the wheat from the chaff in the wild and wooly world of search engines.
You can download Matts actual presentation here. Enjoy!
Check out SEORoundTables new article highlighting the Google Webmaster tools upgrade!!!
A great tool for webmasters just got better. Google released early this morning an updated look for Google Webmaster Central. They have added some new features and better organized some previous sections. Members on WMW are discussing the new changes and how they feel about the redesign. Mostly the feedback is all positive and find the interface much easier to use.
New for WMT seems to have added Subscriber Stats, adding the ability for webmasters to track the number of people who visit their feeds via Google Reader, iGoogle, or Orkut. One member on WMW noticed the PR distribution link has been removed. Overall this seems to just be an interface update with a better design, nav improvements, and sleek spiffy new buttons.
Check out Google Webmaster Tools for yuorself and give it a spin!
Good services is the key to success in any business. Thats what I see with Google, they keep improving everyday. This is definitely an avenue to pursue if you’re in need of immediate assistance.
Check out SEORoundtables article now!
