Comments on: Google to Use “Faerie Magicks” in Tracking New Print Ads

By: Deep Jive Interests » Is Om Malik a Hypocrite?

Deep Jive Interests » Is Om Malik a Hypocrite? — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 05:12:35 +0000

[...] What I’ve noticed is a few commenters calling Om out, essentially labelling him a hypocrite, wondering why Mr. Malik is critical of a company trying to catch a little web2.0 pixie dust (not unlike Google using Faerie Magick), when perhaps, Mr. Malik’s GigaOm is a purveyor of said magic (or, perhaps hype). [...]

By: Tony

Tony — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 05:11:42 +0000

Jeebus on a stick!
I can’t get … those images … out … of my brain!

Thanks ben — thanks a lot. ;)

By: Ben Miller

Ben Miller — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 05:03:02 +0000

funny you should ask…

http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=all&q=japan+transvestite&m=tags

By: Tony

Tony — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 04:55:07 +0000

Well, I’ll leave QRcode and mobile technologies of the far east in your capable and qualified hands by saying “if you say so, sir”. :)

I wonder what kind of faeries they have in Tokyo … ?

By: Ben Miller

Ben Miller — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 04:43:57 +0000

- faerie magicks for now for sure (for the North American market)

- but Google is building a chain to link data from handsets (visual codes, RFID, geolocation…) to a relevant URL

- mobile+barcode is increasingly mainstream, kind of depends on your geography

- colorzip is mainstream in Korea

- QRcode is mainstream in Japan

- mainstream will mean China and India — don’t want to fall into the trap oft-noted by futurists that individuals tend to overestimate 2-year change and underestimate 10-year change — but think in terms of a billion handsets some years out

- to maintain revenue growth Google needs expansion into China and India and onto mobile handsets

By: Tony

Tony — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 04:19:54 +0000

Ben — thanks for popping by.
Great points, but to that I would only wonder when the mobile barcode to URL technology would a) be available to mainstream interests, and then b) when would it become mainstream enough that enough people use it to be worthwhile implementing on a grand scale.

Since Google seems to be implementing this thing in “alpha” form in the upcoming weeks (days?) I still wonder about how they’re going to track the results with any efficacy.

I’m still going with faerie magicks. ;)

By: Ben Miller

Ben Miller — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 02:00:09 +0000

Two things to consider:

The rise of free papers around the world. Give away the paper in return for some attention (say, commuters while riding the subway)

Print ads will be increasingly linked via a mobile barcode to a URL. If I understand correctly, print technology makes it fairly easy to print a different mobile barcode for each individual advertisement and these could each be aimed at a different URL. The subsequent links between real-world object (e.g. barcode on ad for x on page y of freepaper z handed out at location a at around time b…) and URL could be useful individually and then sliced and diced in aggregate.