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Media Platforms Design Team

Encounter that thing at the right there? Yous've probably noticed these around, mainly on advertisements. It's chosen a QR code, and marketers want y'all to use your smartphone's camera to "read" it. Hither'southward what you should know about them... and how to make your ain!

QR (Quick Response) codes are a type of barcode — not unlike the vertically-lined ones on every production you buy — that provide information when read by a scanner equipped to translate information technology. They were outset used in the mid-90s by a Japanese auto manufacturer as a way to keep rail of parts, only marketers have begun using them as a fun way to encode and share additional information with consumers, beyond what they can clasp into an advertising. (The 1 shown here is Practiced Housekeeping's.)

After downloading an app (I like QuickMark, but there are a ton of options out there), y'all utilize your smartphone's camera to capture the code. You'll and then immediately be asked if you'd similar to see whatever info the lawmaking indicates — it could exist a prompt to go to a website URL or to send an electronic mail (say, to enter a competition). Marketers are also using them to offer discounts and coupons — a reason it really pays to expect for these on ads. Farther, tech savvy companies are putting them on employees' business organization cards, so the contact info can be speedily read and imported into a recipient's cell phone's accost book.

To create your own, you tin can utilize a phone app (QuickMark does this), or go to a QR generator website, such as QRStuff.com or Qurify.com. Some ideas for what you might encode: your contact info, your Facebook profile page URL, or even a Google Map of your firm (for a party invitation, for instance). Once created, you can salve the square code as an image file that you tin can share or paste wherever you see fit, or y'all can email or text it to your friends and family unit (phone apps can also translate codes sent this fashion).

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Have y'all ever scanned a QR code? What do you think of them? And how might you lot use a self-created i? Please tell united states in the comments below.