Mobile Barcodes In China
All forms of mobile advertising have been in the media a lot lately as the industry wraps its head around ad-supported rather than fee-based content, and mobile barcodes have gotten their fair share. From the consumer perspective they do have the benefit of the user initiating the contact. BusinessWeek has an article focusing on mobile barcodes in China, where mobile advertising is still dominated by push SMS ads. The countries mobile ad market was $17 million last year, out of a total of $40 billion. The technology faces the same hurdles it does in other countries, such as the need for enough codes to get people to use them and the need for enough people to get advertisers to use them, but the article also quotes people as saying the lack of 3G access is a problem. Even if someone does take use a mobile barcode it takes a long time for any content to download over the air. Of course, with some barcodes it’s possible to code more than a URL…
In terms of cost, “MyClick…charges an annual licensing fee and a fee for each hyperlinked frame. Once the frames are in use, the price is US$0.20-0.60 per click“.
Besides the availability of an inventory of codes and other obstacles, at 20 cents to 60 cents, as opposed to a P2P SMS at 1 cent, that's a high charge for an average chinese consumer to pay for such a service. But, given the law of big numbers which apply to China's mobile market, moderate success in China may force a gravitational change on the traction of mobile bar codes everywhere else in the world.
Agreed Paul! Anyway barcode technology will eventually be nearly free. Better phones = more powerful reading/processing. Soon all the info you will need will be stored in the code and those extra fees will only be for those who want additional tracking or metrics.
I'm pretty sure it's the advertisers paying the 20-60 cents per click — but it's still a lot for them to pay.
James,
Compared to what, Google's advertising monitary intake? Isn't Google known for click fraud, or, has that topic has fallen out of the news? Why? What about being able to to control how much advertising dollars my company wants to spend for that particular product? What about knowing what the consumer wants? What are they looking for? Where are they visiting?
When the interactive barcodes are clicked the advertiser can find out how far the consumer is reading into the code?
Has anyone looked into the mobile platform named Qode or Neomedia Technologies?
I am surprised that Business Week did not try and top the New York Times article. The real story of interactive barcodes for the United States has not told.
Just my opinion.
NeoMedia’s mobile code reading platform qode is making tremendous strides in Europe as well as here in North America. With a great showing at CTIA, tremendous media coverage from the New York Times, and their involvement with the Mobile Codes Consortium, qode is on its way to becoming the code-agnostic universal reader with its soon to be released upgrade version capable of reading UPC, Aztec, Datamatrix, and QR codes.
Best,
Sean
http://streetstylz.blogspot.com/
Swampthing,
Compared to online clicks, and to other mobile advertsing formats. It depends on what's being advertised, but it seems to be mostly for small items such as mobile content or fast food offers, and other things where 20-60 c is a significant part of the sale price.
Companies may think the higher price is worth it for branding, or to start a relationship with the customer they can maintain through mobile, or a variety of other reasons — but it's still high.
60cents … CPA maybe on a 10 dollar movie ticket… you arent going to get those types of mainstream dollars until there is a CPA mobile ad network and a contactless payment infrastructure around the country selling hard goods…
Soft good mobile content and brand advertising… I think not