QR Codes- Why, Why, Why?

Although the printing industry (or perhaps slightly more accurately, its consultants and journalists) seems to have latched onto QR codes in a pretty dramatic way, parallels can be drawn to the initial hype of VDP PURLs (Personalized URLs) that took place in the early 2000s. If you pick piece from a printing trade journal written seven or so years ago about VDP and PURLs, you could replace the acronym “PURL” with “QR Code”, and the piece would likely still have the same meaning; tell the same story.

In overview, the goal of QR codes is to enhance the user’s (i.e., reader or consumer) seemingly dull print piece with access to new, rich media experiences that complement the print piece. The flip side is the notion that the print piece is driving customers to the rich media experience waiting for them to view, to help “close the deal”. These are both worthy goals, but have encountered some challenges along the road to adoption.

For printers who have implemented VDP, QR Codes are technically just like implementing a PURL (Personal Response URL) on a printed piece—the benefit is that the recipient doesn’t have to type it in. This should increase the likelihood that the prospect will engage and see the additional content. That additional content to be provided via the QR Code’s link is often a mobile website these days, but can take other forms, like playing a video or showing a map. Like PURLS and other VDP applications, QR Codes can be “one to many”, where the same QR Code could be scanned by thousands of prospects, and they are all taken to the same unique content, or they can be 1:1, where each user gets their own personalized QR code, that takes them to some content that is personalized just for them. Printing QR codes is easy, and can technically be done by any Print Service Provider, using inexpensive and even free software.

One of today’s QR Code applications, readily seen, is on signs and graphics. The consumer at the point of purchase, or in the aisle of a retail store, is enticed by offer text and graphics on a printed piece; or the merchant wants to make a special offer on a particular product or add-on item.

QR Codes have appeared in many different shapes and sizes of printed products in addition to signage and display graphics. These include magazines and newspapers, brochures and datasheets, and even stationery including business cards. The results are mixed because of some obvious limitations of QR Codes.

The biggest obstacle is software that can read the code, which is relatively cumbersome to obtain today. This limits the audience for the code to tech-savvy consumers. While at this writing some 88% of smartphones have cameras, apparently only about 13% have software installed to allow them to read QR Codes. This special reader software must be installed on a smart phone to scan the code, and it is not included with Google’s Android smartphone software nor on the Apple iPhone and iPad devices. Until Apple and Google include native QR Code applications that automatically work with smartphones built-in cameras, QR codes will remain a curiosity that will only be used by technical and “bleeding-edge” users.

Another problem with QR codes is their size and appearance on the printed piece. To make them easier to scan, they are general fairly large on the printed piece. Making them bigger also makes them obvious to the user, because it’s a double edge sword—they are seen, but they are ugly (a bunch of square dots inside a larger square), as well as meaningless and unfamiliar to most consumers. All while taking up print “real estate”.

So although the QR Code is being touted by consultants and pundits in the printing industry, it has not achieved enough traction or “ubiquity” to justify the amount of attention it has received. Does it make print complement mobile? It technically can, but today the consumer has to be quite motivated (presumably by an enormously valuable offer) to act. While it could be said that this may be the problem, not the technology itself—i.e., the creativity and motivation of advertisers to actually use this new mechanism in campaigns— it’s kind of a chicken and egg thing, and if advertisers really saw the value in doing this versus alternatives, perhaps we would all be scanning QR codes multiple times a day.

There are other ways to achieve the same results that QR Codes are promising. A company called DigiMarc, based in Beaverton, Oregon (www.digimarc.com) has been creating what they call Digital Watermarks for many years. Their software accomplishes the same end goal as QR Codes, but without the visible barcode-style manifestation. The August 2012 edition of Seventeen Magazine makes extensive use of the technology. Similar to QR Codes, the company’s solution requires reader software to be installed on the consumer’s smartphone to activate the rich media experience (in this case, software that is proprietary to DigiMarc), leaving that hurdle for the consumer to overcome. Seventeen Magazine’s young readership may be a good test, because it “seems” likely they would engage and want to see rich media associated with the “fun” content in the printed magazine. We will stay tuned and look forward to seeing the results.

Image recognition technology is likely to become much more powerful in smartphones as their processor speeds and memory capacity increases. This will allow the phones to recognize images, and retrieve offers based on the actual image itself, without a code. Google has been working on such technologies for several years, and is likely to make this available as an adjunct to their Ad Words offerings in the future.

Voice Recognition software in phones is only in its infancy now with technologies like Apple’s Siri, but will very likely be used for advertising applications. Instead of having to scan a poster, for example, you could simply speak particular text from the poster (i.e., keywords) to Siri, and she would retrieve an offer for you on your IOS-based smartphone. Apple is making gigantic investments in mobile advertising technology, so we can expect this to happen sooner rather than later.

This is an excerpt from the paper entitled, "Does Print Complement Mobile Computing", by Chuck Gehman and David Uyytendaele, published in the TAGA 2012 Proceedings.

The Inevitable End of the Flash Era

Adobe has some really cool things pointed at the Internet these days, much more than what they are doing in the print space. A friend pointed me to this nifty open source framework they've shipped, called PhoneGap. Mobile Internet, and "multi-screen" are the hottest areas for developers, so it should come as no surprise that this is where Adobe's attention is focused.

As for the Internet goodies, apparently Flash is no longer part of their plans for the future. The writing has been on the wall since Steve Jobs started his anti-Flash crusade roughly three years ago.

Last November, Adobe announced that it would stop the development of Flash for mobile devices. This week, Adobe disabled new installs of Flash on Android devices. If this really means Flash is done for Android, this is really a huge milestone. I mean, Flash is still "ubiquitous", and a lot of work will have to be done to completely erase it from the web. In fact, it's likely that remnants will be around for many years.

Steve Jobs would be completely stoked. As we may recall, he started this whole thing in early 2010 by calling out Flash as "evil." He, almost single-handedly, made HTML 5 as the platform of choice for mobile content. Obviously HTML 5 is growing in adoption on the desktop, too-- limited primarily by the unfortunate staying power of ancient browsers on user desktops.

Anyone who uses Flash now for anything except games and certain video applications is making a bad technical decision. And unless you already have lots of Flash expertise in house, you should move on-- because the best developers will have little interest in working with this platform from now on.

Berg Cloud's adorable Little Printer poised to ship!

Late last year I wrote here about a company called Berg Cloud, developing a really fun little intelligent printer, appropriately named "Little Printer".

Well, yesterday I got a note saying they are about the ship the product. Here's the announcement verbatim:

"It’s been an amazing few months working on Little Printer. Since we made the announcement last November, Little Printer has received loads of attention. The introductory video received half a million views in the first five days alone. Over 60,000 of you signed up to hear news, and we’re very happy to be able to bring you some.

For eight months we've been getting a mirror finish on the plastic, folding steel, fixing radio interference bugs (there are some war stories there), designing characters, creating beautiful packaging, making the best possible API for developers, getting set up with credit cards... and today, finally, we're manufacturing." Which means:

Little Printer can now be pre-ordered from the BERG Cloud shop!

Congratulations to Berg Cloud and I wish them all the best.  I didn't place a pre-order, so I guess I'll have to get in line now!

Upcoming: Automation Solutions Network in Minneapolis

The most recent meeting of the Printing Industries of America's Automation Solutions Network (ASN) was held this past February in Memphis and featured a tour of Mimeo, and after that, a once-in-a-lifetime late night tour of the Fedex Global Superhub, to watch "the sort"-- when all the packages get unloaded, sorted and loaded onto new planes and then start flying out. For printing nerds, Mimeo was probably the more fun part of the visit, but no one could leave the Fedex experience without being absolutely astounded!

ASN is a great industry user group.  It's a unique venue by virtue of the the presentations and tours, and just as important in my book, it's an unparalleled networking event for technical people involved in factory automation and integration projects. The group welcomes a wide range of users of JDF-enabled systems as well as the suppliers of those systems. The Automation Solutions Network steering committee includes printers who have implemented successful automated workflow systems or are in the process of doing so.  There's really nothing better than talking with a peer and discovering they have the same issues you have-- or conversely, they've already solved that problem and are willing to share the solution.

The next ASN meeting will be held in Minneapolis on September 18th and 19th, 2012. There are two very special parts of the meeting agenda that are great reasons for anyone involved in print technology to attend.

First, on September 18th, there will be a tour hosted by Japs-Olson. This legendary firm was founded in 1907,  and has steadily grown to be the worldwide leader in direct mail services and commercial printing they are today, employing more than 700 people in a facility that occupies more than 500,000 square feet operating 24/7.  The company serves global customers managing campaigns from a few thousand pieces to tens of millions. The company has long been a leader in creating and implementing automation applications to support their continuously evolving business.

Second, my fellow Dscoop Operations committee member Bill Wieners, president of Digital Lizard, will give a talk about his company's use of automation.If you've never heard Bill speak, I  strongly encourage you to sign up for this event.  Bill and I did a joint presentation to a full house at Dscoop7, the HP Graphics Arts Users Group meeting, this past March in Washington, DC. As Bill and I were planning our talk, it was startling clear how similar our approaches to automation are.  Even though Digital Lizard is smaller than Mimeo, we share many of the same challenges and have approached solving those problems similarly.But different! For me, there will always be more to understand about what Bill has done, and what's he's planning on doing next. And he's an engaging speaker.

Located in a remote corner of Idaho, Digital Lizard’s experience should make every company take notice. Their Web2Print software has allowed them to scale from 175 orders to over 400 orders per day. Automated workflows for production and back end business tasks have eliminated and reduced labor and streamlined processes. The company has 14 Indigos, and a variety of other devices and finishing equipment, but a surprising low headcount.  The company was recently purchased by venerable Creel Printing in Las Vegas.

There are only 40 spots available for the meeting.  I'm going to take one of them.  Sign up now!

How Automation Benefits Mimeo

Automation is critically important to what we do at Mimeo, and touches every aspect of a job—even when there are manual processes involved in producing parts of it.  The automation begins with the customer on our web site, and extends to the delivery of their job.

Automation delivers many features and benefits to them and to us.  Every document we produce originates as an order placed on our website. The customer brings their content and uses our interface to tell us how they want their print product produced— organizing the content, telling us what paper and binding they want, specifying finishing options like folding or covers.  As they create their piece on the screen, we show them exactly what it will look like, and provide them with their price in real time. 

Automation means the website can look at the choices they are making, and determine when we can produce the job, so we can tell them during the process “Submit this order by 10pm Eastern for delivery as early as 8:30AM tomorrow”, or conversely telling them that a particularly option they’ve chosen might take us an extra few hours to produce, so will not be able to be delivered until the next day.

When the order is placed, we already know how much it will cost to produce, and how much we’re selling it for.  We’ve often already collected the money.  The best part is: it automatically goes into production (although some jobs can be automatically routed to preflight or prepress, if necessary or desirable). In many cases, a job could literally appear on the workstation of a press operator seconds after the customer clicks. People throughout the organization have visibility of the job’s status at all times. Once printing is complete, the job moves through the plant for finishing, then on to shipping. 

Once the job is finished and shipped, a number of different groups throughout the company take advantage of the data we’ve collected about the job and our performance to make decisions and continuously improve our products and operations.

drupa every 4 years, but always once in a lifetime

I returned from spending a week in Germany at the every-four-years drupa trade printing and paper trade fair.  I was there with HP and  Dscoop. We had more than 1,000 Dscoop members present at the fair. HP played an amazing host and kept us busy with events and tours throughout the week.  They were showcasing several new presses including their new B2 presses, the 10,000 20,000 and 30,000, to which our group had been introduced in March at the Dscoop7 conference in Washington, DC (see previous post here.)

Here's a quick video from Whatheythink.com that editor Cary Sherburne and I shot while I was at the show.

This show always surprises, and this time around was no exception. I saw a tremendous amount of exciting technology, and had a lot of really great conversations with industry colleagues.  I am hoping to take a few minutes next week to catalog some of what I brought back from the show next week.

The Era of the Hard Drive in the Sky has Begun!

Yesterday, Google announced Google Drive, a cloud storage system that is among the most anticipated features of any software system, ever. Industry analysts, pundits and gadflies have been predicting the eventuality of this capability for years. In it's initial launch incarnation, Google drive is simple to install and easy to use, and as far as I'm concerned, totally lives up to the expectations built-up around it! Out of the gate, anyone who signs up gets 5GB of online storage for free. Upgrade to 20gb, 100gb or even a terabyte for very affordable incremental fees. It makes storing files to the cloud and syncing them among multiple devices seamless (PCs, Macintosh and Android Smartphones today, Apple iOS and other OS/devices later). Google Drive acts just like another drive on Windows or the Mac. You can copy or move files to it, and even create new files and folders in it. I installed it on my Macintosh first, and when I logged in, I just saw all my Google Docs files in a native OS window on my MacBook Air. It could not have been simpler.

The timing of the Google announcement may have been planned to steal the thunder of a Microsoft announcement only two days earlier-- of a similar solution, the new version of SkyDrive, which gives MSFT a competitive offering in the cloud storage arena. Notable in the announcement are new storage applications, new support for devices running Mac OS X Lion and iOS, as well as support for Windows phones. SkyDrive automatically synchronizes the devices to which it is connected. Files and folders are organized in SkyDrive in the same manner to which we've all become accustomed on our local devices.

While Google and Microsoft are well-known as rivals to one another, they are both equally wary of startups who might come along and eat their lunch. In this case, those companies are Dropbox and to a lesser extent Box (formerly box.net). Dropbox was founded in 2007, and has a good head start on both of the (in the case of MSFT relatively) new competitors. Dropbox has more than 25 million people using the service, which works on Windows, Mac and Linux computers, as well as with mobile apps on iPhone, Android and Blackberry. Drew Houston, Dropbox's Co-Founder and CEO, upon hearing the announcement of Google Drive, tweeted, "In other news, @Dropbox is launching a search engine." I'm not sure if this response is hubris or real fear. Prior to the announcement, Dropbox's private company valuation was speculated to be about $4 Billion. It remains to be seen if it can maintain that sky high valuation in light of the fact that two of the biggest tech companies in the world just came out with respective "features" that come close to duplicating Dropbox's entire business. That is sort of the key: for MSFT and Google, this is a feature among many thousands of other features, not the whole company or even the most important part. On the flip side, though, Dropbox has been expecting this kind of competition for a long, long time. Now its here and it is formidable. For example, Google Drive's pricing is roughly 1/4 of Dropbox's pricing today. That could dramatically change the game, in terms of acquisition of customers for Google, and loss of revenue for Dropbox. Furthermore, the integration between Google Drive and Google Apps, though a bit minimalistic today, is already very useful for companies like my own who have been using Google Apps almost exclusively for the last couple of years.

For consumers of this technology, it's going to be exciting to watch this competition between industry giants. In addition to simple storage and backup in the cloud, these services offer great collaboration and sharing possibilities-- both intracompany and between companies. It's hard to believe that in this day and age high-tech companies would still be using technologies like FTP to share files, but they are. Replacing such primitive services with these new technologies is good for everyone-- the creator, the user, the printer, the IT guys, everyone. With the large files we consume daily in the graphic arts industry, these services offer a really affordable and easy to use alternative to old fashioned, error-prone methods that our customers don't want to understand and shouldn't have to!