Pullback? Who Cares!A gorilla was born & there's no turning back regardless of wild PPS up & down swings.
October 22, 2009
NeoMedia and Neustar Move One Step Closer to 2D Mobile Barcodes Everywhere
By Mary Cronin
Professor, Boston College
https://www.specosys.com/topics/smart-products/articles/67309-neomedia-neustar-mo ve-one-step-closer-2d-mobile.htm
After years of waiting for 2D barcodes to deliver on their promise of linking print and product codes to rich media and consumer engagement, it’s hard to get excited about yet another announcement.
Nonetheless, signs of standards alignment, mobile reader interoperability and serious ecosystem commitment are gathering momentum. Neustar, already the lynchpin of short code marketing in the United States, is well positioned to be the trusted service provider for wireless carriers and creative agencies who want to launch a marketing campaign based on 2D barcode scanning. Neustar provided central clearinghouse and registry services for a 2D interoperability pilot program last spring to get the ball rolling. Four leading industry players, 3GVision, Mobile Discovery, Mobile Tag and NeoMedia demonstrated that their standards-based mobile barcode readers, technologies and campaign managers could respond seamlessly to user scans through Neustar’s clearing house service.
NeoMedia Technologies (News - Alert), which holds many of the key patents for 2D barcode technology, is also taking a strong role in enabling a viable 2D barcode ecosystem. NeoMedia has been particularly active in recent months forming ecosystem partnerships and finalizing new licensing and implementation deals for its extensive patent portfolio of core 2D technology. This month’s announcement that Neustar will become the exclusive U.S. licensing agent for NeoMedia patents looks like the next stage in facilitating one-stop business and technology solutions for companies that want to jumpstart their services and consumer promotions using 2D barcodes.
This is a smart move for both NeoMedia and Neustar. If NeoMedia’s intellectual property is easy and cost-effective to license through a trusted platform provider like Neustar, it can become the interoperable technology at the center of 2D implementation programs. It’s more valuable to NeoMedia to charge a reasonable license fee to encourage hundreds of ecosystem participants than to hold out for high fees from a few players who may not ramp up successfully. They, the wireless carriers and the creative agencies and brands will all reap the rewards of billions of 2D barcode scanning transactions once the technology penetrates the mass market.
Neustar brings a clear value to the 2D barcode ecosystem, including the lessons learned from managing the U.S. short code registry and other carrier services. Diane Strahan, vice president of Mobile Services at Neustar notes, “We are very excited about the 2D technology and the potential of this ecosystem to create a compelling and lucrative business opportunity for all players. Part of Neustar’s role is to keep the technology working in the background so that whenever a consumer scans a barcode it will resolve correctly and deliver a great interactive experience. The 2D barcode registry and clearinghouse services ensure interoperability across all the participating carriers – and any company building on the open standards will be able to participate in the ecosystem.”
Together, NeoMedia and Neustar look like the best candidates to lead the first really seamless, full-solution ecosystem for launching mass market 2D barcode campaigns and services in the United States.
I spoke with Iain McCready, CEO of NeoMedia, to get his take on the role of a smart ecosystem in 2D barcode adoption. Here are some of McCready’s observations.
Mary Cronin: NeoMedia has been a leader in partnering and interoperability pilots lately. Why is that a priority for you?
Iain McCready (pictured left): NeoMedia wants to see 2D barcodes succeed as a daily resource for billions of mobile phone subscribers. After years of competition, it became clear that no one company, no matter how great their technology was, could scale this market alone. In my experience, every leading brand and print publisher who sees a demo of 2D barcodes gets enthusiastic about how it can bring innovation and interactivity to their product marketing.
So everyone loves the technology. But marketing campaigns are planned around how many customers you can reach, how many devices, how many wireless subscribers. Getting the maximum participation in any campaign requires standards, interoperability among devices and readers, and also someone to be the registry and the clearinghouse for getting all the traffic to the right place based on the 2D barcode image scan. That means a large ecosystem of companies who are willing to put proprietary concerns second to creating a platform that will scale the market as a whole. That’s how NeoMedia looks at this opportunity – we want to help make it a big enough pie for all partners to benefit.
MC: I know that NeoMedia is active in Europe and Latin America and other areas of the world. What does your recent agreement with Neustar mean for the U.S. market in particular?
IM: The agreement makes 2D barcode services and technology accessible to many more companies and users. A lot of companies have been on the sidelines because of debates inside the industry about standards and interoperability and intellectual property ownership. It’s time to get beyond that and make it clear that interoperability has been proven and that anyone can join this ecosystem and have access to all the required technology. That gets rid of the remaining barriers to implementation and lets agencies and brands focus on the value proposition of 2D barcodes for their products.
MC: What’s your prediction about when the ecosystem strategy will pay off? Will 2010 finally be the year of 2D barcodes for mass market campaigns?
IM: I expect 2010 is going to be huge year; by the second half of 2010 we will begin to see scale and from that the market will take off. But we also know that mass market adoption is not going to happen overnight. There is still a lot of education to be done, and pilot projects to get new players familiar with the potential of 2D barcode interactions. So NeoMedia will be even more active in the coming year as the U.S. and global market takes off.
Dr. Cronin is a Professor of Management in the Information Systems Department at Boston College. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.
Edited by Michael Dinan
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I like her credentials. She's not a stock tout!