Paperlinks (YC S11) Brings Business-Optimized QR Codes To Life | Hacker News Reader

Paperlinks (YC S11) Brings Business-Optimized QR Codes To Life

techcrunch.com

52 pointshamiltonchan15 comments

I'm confused. What's new here? Isn't every designer able to do this already?

http://qranywhere.blogspot.com/2011/01/designer-qr-codes-by-...

My apologies, I'm sure I must be missing something. Please walk me through Paperlinks.

Paperlinks creates:

1, Custom branded QR Codes 2. More sophisticated landing pages 3. Scanalytics for use metrics 4. Something else? 5. All for a monthly fee of 25$

How are you going to lock this market in, when it already seems so wide open that anyone can do it?

Thanks in advance for the clarification .

http://qrarts.com/ - since 2009

random designers take a shot. http://dzineblog.com/2010/08/20-qr-code-business-cards-desig...

Amazing landing pages for Central Park's World Park Campaign via QR Codes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OCyfV_k2_g

4min

Thanks for the compliments, rdl! When it comes to designer codes, I believe that function trumps form. There is definitely no point to designing a code if it cannot be scanned quickly and easily. The code in the TechCrunch article should definitely scan easily across any QR reader on any smartphone. That said, it is nearly impossible for us to test every reader on every phone. Assuming a designer code can be scanned easily (which is a requirement on every designer code we create), the benefits of branding the code are tremendous. Scanthrough rates shoot up when you use a designer code, and they definitely have the ability to become the talk of the town. We will put up examples of designer codes on http://www.paperlinks.com in the very near future so you can decide for yourselves!

Any chance you could do something like the Microsoft Tags/ HCCB's[1][2] without having to route through Microsoft's analytics program?

[1] http://cdn.pocketnow.com/html/portal/news/0000007349/NewsIma... [2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Capacity_Color_Barcode

How do you create designer QR codes? Do you have artsy algorithms?

It's somewhat simpler than that. QR codes use error-correcting codes in order to deal with things like damaged codes, etc. The QR code reader treats the logo or art part of Paperlinks' codes as damage, and uses the error-correcting code to fill in the blanks. I did the same thing (only less artistic) with Groovebud's codes. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/agpbffgdfhnhloelam...

Looks like you need a mirror.

Wow, these look amazing.

Given that QR codes are mainly just used as URLs, sacrificing some capacity for better graphic design and integration into an existing design seems like the right compromise.

Especially for markets where only a small subset know what a QR code is, making it visually interesting makes incorporating a QR code into a document a lot less of a sacrifice, too. And if it's really interesting, it might make end users more interested in learning what it is.

While I like the look of the customized QR Codes, they make it harder for the scanners to read them. A lot harder. Most of the ones I've seen couldn't be read at all. The one pictured there, I had to get it perfectly lined up and filling the screen before my phone read it.

On the other hand, I generate normal QR Codes to scan all the time and I can hold my phone off-center and far away and they scan instantly.

Is the extra prettiness really worth the extra hassle for the (potential) customer?

Edit: After reading the comment by hamiltonchan, I decided to try scanning the link again. It appears that from some angles, my phone WILL scan it instantly. There's just 1 angle that makes it tough for some reason. (From down and to the right.) I just happened to hit that angle first. I tried quite a few more times and that's the only angle that lags, and it has never been as hard as the the first time again.

I assume they're making an aesthetic trade off to keep the QR "noise" appearance down. They could increase the grid size giving them more alignment patterns to assist with skewed scans, but it reduces the aesthetic appeal since it returns to looking more like a barcode.

Even if your original statement is correct, I think bar code scanners will quickly improve to accommodate it. My bar code scanner on a Desire took a few seconds more than usual too.

what phone/app are you using? barcode scanner on my nexus s was able to read it right away off my screen, at a weird angle.

Samsung Galaxy S.

I'm sure other factors are involved, too, but my point stands: Why make it harder on the customer?

You can't assume that every customer will have a pristine image to scan, or that they have a nice phone, etc etc. QR was designed with redundancy to help the customer, but this defeats that.

See the simplest QR-code with landing page maker: http://qr.linkstore.ru Just a plain copy-paste

[this reads like they copied a press release]

anyway, do error rates go up when you start removing the redundancy?

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