The popular link shortening service Bit.ly (which has billions of clicks on its links per month) has just announced that it will allow users to shorten links and automatically turn those links in to QR codes which will lead back to the original link. This is a fantastic use of technology and I can already see tons of uses for this and it really shows that QR codes are going to become more and more popular and widely embraced. All you have to do to add a QR code to your URL is change the end of the bit.ly link to .qr and it generates a QR code automatically. The image on the left is one I generated in a matter of seconds
How Does It Work And What Is The Future?
You’ll have to download an app to your phone but there are plenty available in app stores and once you snap this QR code it will take you to the link of your choice which in the case above is here http://bit.ly/ai8t4Q.qr. QR codes are a great way for marketers and brands around the world to interact in an engaging way with customers and they can be added to tons of real world locations that encourage users to visit websites. They could appear on packaging, front doors, restaurants or vans and what bit.ly have done here is make it even easier for users to generate their own QR code by simply adding two letters to URLs and with billions of those already being shortened every month this could really be a huge push forward for the QR code industry.
a bit too late…but nice move!!
This is great news. I think that QR codes or something like them will be hitting the US / Can Market place sooner than later. Geo location on smarphones is the first step and now people are ready to contextulized. I hope the LCBO, Recipes, videos, and all news papers get on board… nice work Bit.ly – Check out my post on QR codes here. http://bit.ly/aWZiOz
Love that bit.ly is doing this — will hopefully jumpstart QR code adoption in the US.
Also, am I the only one who thinks that QR codes look like Magic Eye pictures? :D
Just the Google’s shortener. I really hope that the fish (bitly’s mascot) eating google multi-color eggs or something in the image on the .qr page is by design.
Is it possible that it works only on some accounts. I haven’t founf any information about that on their blog and also can’t generate anything?
Bit of a shameful plug I know, but since everyone’s so keen on QR codes all of a sudden, I made a little QR code generator that everyone can use :)
http://www.brcdr.com
The two free services have a few holes in their offerings, I wrote an article about workarounds http://goo.gl/5Lmo0 . Specifically this post describes how to create short notes for yourself in the normally innocuous query string– as a bonus your notes make the long URL different so that you can have multiple short URLs pointing at what is essentially the same long URL.