QR Codes in Apartment Magazines
The jury is still out in my mind as it relates to the use of QR codes. I wrote about them three or four years ago and at the time I thought they were cool but today I have a very different opinion. Back then there was no real mass use commercial or otherwise and in the same respect there was a neat kind of novelty about them. It was cool that I could make my own but really confusing in that that I had no way to read it after I made it. That was before that proliferation of smart phones and the apps that make them so powerful. For now I classify QR codes under the “just because you can, does not mean you should” category.
Waste of Time
For example, I am reading The NOW Revolution by Bear and Naslund and it is full of QR codes. I give them high points for novelty. I give them high points in quantity. And, if it mattered, I give them high points in placement as it relates to aesthetics. They really packed a ton of information into 200 pages or less. But, I would never, in a million years, take the time to pull out my phone, take a picture and wait for the page to load. It’s too much work. Don’t make me pay [in the way of my time and in my money] twice for information.
Think Twice
As a result of The Now Revolution, I will never buy another book without flipping through it more thoroughly. If I see QR codes; I see that money more well spent in my bank account.
QR codes in Apartment Magazines
QR codes are pasted all over the pages of ForRent Magazine and others like it. I wonder, outside or AEs presenting a WOW moment, if people actually use them in a meaningful way. I hear the echos of “value add” but I think “what a waste of space.” Tell me what the value is and reduce my bill accordingly and keep the crazy things off my page.
