MC2 Mobile Codes Consortium convinces OMA and GSMA to drive mobile marketing using 2D barcodes
Rating: MC2, OMA, GSMA, 2D? Drowning in acronyms
MC2?
The MC2 is the Mobile Codes Consortium. It’s a cross industry group created by NeoMedia and Gavitec to enforce a global adoption of mobile marketing using 2D barcodes? Other founders and members of the MC2 are: Publicis Groupe, Hewlett-Packard, Deutsche Telekom, KPN, Nokia, Qualcomm and Telefonica/O2.
What will the GSMA and OMA now do?
The MC2 group has been banging at the door of the OMA and GSMA and now both bodies will convince their members to endorse and deliver a mobile industry marketing standard for mobile barcodes. The GSMA will start to encourage their 700 mobile operator members to adopt interoperable business models. The OMA will work specifically on what these technical standards are.
From the press release
Dr. Frank Müller, Director of Intellectual Property and Strategy at NeoMedia Technologies, said: “The commitment of GSMA and OMA gives important impetus for the worldwide development of mobile marketing based on using 2D barcodes. The barcode reading technology, enabling people with mobile phones to read mobile codes and immediately connect to content and services, makes the mobile Internet much more accessible for consumers and likewise offers advertisers various opportunities for innovative, well-directed and cost-effective marketing approaches with precise response evaluation.”
William “Chip” Hoffman, CEO of NeoMedia Technologies, said: “We are creating the mobile equivalent of ‘hyper-text’ for broadcast and print media. Like SMS, a standard technology used by all carriers world-wide, mobile barcodes allow Brands and Consumers to interact on static media the same way they do on the web; cross-country and cross-carrier. With this wireless technology and the associated systems supporting it, old-media becomes new-media.”
What we think?
This morning I exchanged emails with NeoMedia CEO William “Chip” Hoffman. He spoke informatively about the “pure play” barcode market and how NeoMedia provides both Push and Pull elements of mobile barcoding.
Ron Verweij from Mbarc.nl left a comment on this site explaining push and pull he said:
1) pull barcoding where pattern recognition software is converting the camera phone into a barcode scanning.
2) push barcoding where mobile barcodes are distributed to be scanned by equipment to be validated.
From what I can gather – it’s the Push that is growing at the moment but the Pull area is where the hype is and the one that needs the standardization fast.
Any way of making the barcode market leaner and more accessible for consumers is a merit.
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One Response to “MC2 Mobile Codes Consortium convinces OMA and GSMA to drive mobile marketing using 2D barcodes”
Interesting comments.
Is the MC2 setting the standards, or is the OMA based on above comments, going to be the one coming up with and setting the technical standards?
And the GSM is only going to encourage their members to adopt inter operable business models? Isn’t that already occurring to some degree or other, especially in light of the recent Google news of their open standards platform. It seems all the major US carriers on the heels of that news ststed they were working toward becoming more open to the new technologies as well.
Then there are the push pull issues. I expect that anyone with a bar code reading solution has both push and pull elements in their applications. But in regards to NEOM, If I am not mistaken, all of their campaigns to date have been of the pull nature, such as ONE WATER, Prentice Hall,Case Western Scavenger hunt etc. They all required the consumer click a code and be routed through a server to content on the web. Maybe I missed a pr or something, where they were involved in a project where the consumer was sent a bar code and then was required to take some sort of action, to benefit from that code they received.
If my understanding of NEOMs new business model is correct, I believe the CEO stated numerous times they hope to be the middle man, handling all the transactions, regardless of whose technology is used as far as bar codes readers etc go. I believe he said their focus was not on the NEOREADER, but on the infrastructure, to handle all the traffic. So in that aspect alone, they would require both the ability to push and pull, so that everyone on both sides gets what they are looking for. I for one don’t believe they will be the only one with the infrastructure to handle the complete transaction, from marketer to user and back to marketer. They aren’t the only one at this time, and using the direct method, the marketer doesn’t even need to use a middle man in the equation. They can push a 2D code to the consumers cell phone with a URL embedded that takes them to that marketers web site, to a specific web page on that site, where a promotion or contest is offered. Or they can push a 2D code with a discount coupon embedded for a local vendor which gets scanned at the vendors site, without the use of the middle man infrastructure.
Adopting standards will not change any of that, and I expect we will see a whole lot more of those type applications take place, long before we see the mass adoption of the pull method.
Comment made on December 18th, 2007 at 6:51 pmLeave a Comment