NeoMedia Technologies, Inc (NEOM)

[codes4real]

What’s Different at this Year’s Mobile World Congress in Mobile Codes

http://mobilenextbigthing.biz/2011/02/17/qa-with-clinique/


There are many new announcements in the mobile code space here at Mobile World Congress (MWC) – new partner alliances and recent reports of more scans taking place around the globe, with leading countries growing at triple digit rates. There are enhanced reader/scanners that are faster and have new functionality. And enterprises are making more sophisticated use of barcodes, combining multiple applications into rich experiences.

Mobile barcodes provide a unique advertising medium that easily delivers relevant content to consumers and makes traditional media both interactive and measurable. Barcodes are just one of the discovery mechanisms used in mobile marketing and they are evolving into new form factors, including image recognition and more secure watermarks.

Additionally, Near Field Communications (NFC) is also making inroads with some phone manufacturers putting NFC functionality in their devices. All the while, enterprises are continuing to use traditional SMS short codes and mobile web technologies.

This growing complexity in discovery and application technologies is driving new requirements for scale and openness. Multiple players have to cooperate to provide a simple experience for end users while generating the targeting and control that enterprises want to achieve.

At the same time, the buzz is increasing and many new players are trying to capitalize on this growing marketplace, adding to the confusion and fragmentation.

Neustar has a history of making connections possible — bringing consumers, businesses, mobile operators, technology enablement players and corresponding technologies together — no matter the network, the device, the application or specific technology used.

We traditionally occupy a central clearinghouse and registry position, where we can help bridge the gap between companies, technologies, policy management and roles in an industry.

We’ve had extensive conversations and testing with numerous players and technologies in the barcode space over the last year, and we feel that the need for a clearinghouse to support the increasing diversity of mobile marketing programs, technologies and approaches is becoming increasingly apparent.

As companies’ usage of barcodes and mobile marketing matures, they will invest in putting more and more barcodes and short codes on their products, content and media. This will extend their brand, making these discovery mechanisms valuable digital assets that they will want to own and control.

No matter the make up of the code, be it direct, indirect or another open standard, these codes are digital assets that belong to the brand and must be treated as such. As brands, retailers and other enterprise players exploit these codes by linking them to a variety of content and applications, they will need a central registry to help track and manage their assets.

A clearinghouse allows organizations the agility to delegate their codes to third party application and content campaign managers as needed. This makes it easier for them to add enhanced value to their codes, repurpose them as well as redirect these mobile assets when and where needed.

Neustar’s mobile registry and clearinghouse is meant to serve that purpose. We will support open standards as well as more closed systems as long as the entire ecosystem is agreeable. For example, if a company uses an open code with a unique encoding format, as long as the ecosystem agrees to that, Neustar can support it.

In addition to independent clearing of requests across entities and enrichment of those requests with anonymous metadata, Neustar’s mobile barcode services provide validation/verification of third party marketing activities (including cooperative marketing and coupon redemption).

We will be showcasing our solution at the upcoming CTIA and ad:tech events. Hope to see you there!