Google has announced that they will no longer be using QR codes in their popular Google Places platform. Google places helps people connect to locations by allowing them to rate them online. Businesses use Places to gather reviews from consumers, boosting their online presence. When Google first began using the codes with Places, they mailed thousands of stickers affixed with the codes to businesses that could be used in store windows.
The company’s use of QR codes was meant to be experimental. They wanted to see how viable the codes were in a commercial environment and how successful they would be in engaging consumers. By choosing to discontinue the codes, they seem to have reached a conclusion and are regarding them a failure.
Last week, the codes vanished from the Places dashboard without word from Google. They only announced that they would no longer be using them today in a short statement.
“Users will no longer find unique QR codes in their Places accounts,” says a spokesman. “We are exploring new ways to enable customers to quickly find information about businesses.”
It is unclear whether Google will seek to replace QR codes with anything similar. There is speculation, however, that Google may opt to incorporate NFC tags. NFC, or Near Field Communication, tags are akin to QR codes only in the sense that they can be scanned by a smart phone. The tags can take any shape and can be used for the same purposes as QR codes.
NFC tags have been gaining traction lately and with Google dropping support of QR codes, the tags may become the next popular tool for mobile marketing.
Let us know what you think! Is Google no longer gaga for QR codes? Will QR codes survive with out Google?
