Mobile Barcode Accelerators Featured Article February 26, 2010 Do Barcodes Need a Common Platform like PRS? By Tony Dennis, Contributing Editor
Is there a need for a common platform for 2D mobile barcodes to operate on a countrywide basis? Such a platform would enable all camera phones to recognize the same barcodes and for barcodes to be resold by intermediaries. This could help kick start the 2D barcode sector, just like common five digit shortcodes helped the premium-rate SMS business thrive. Story continues below ?
In certain markets, 2D barcodes have already become truly ubiquitous. Take Japan, for example, where 2D codes now appear on gravestones. This enables mourners to scan the barcode to view a profile of the deceased. In Santiago, Chile, for instance, every bus stop has a barcode on it. With one click, people can get the schedule or find out when the bus will arrive at that stop. Obviously, there are definite advantages to being in one of the world’s “small pockets” of universal acceptance for 2D barcodes.
The biggest problem is that there is currently an absence of a clear strategy to build the critical mass to make the 2D barcode ecosystem real. In Mobile Renaissance, the NetSize (http://www.netsize.com/Ressources_Guide.htm), Scanbuy’s CEO Jonathan Bulkeley makes impassioned plea for a common platform. As an example of how a 2D barcode ecosystem can thrive, Bulkeley points to Spain where all three of the country’s mobile operators – Telefónica, Orange and Vodafone (News - Alert) – have bought into the same system. In fact, Spain has chosen to go with Scanbuy as the sole supplier of a single-code management platform. Consequently barcodes can be resold just like five digit shortcodes, which helped to boost the Premium Rate SMS [PRS] market. That single-code platform, however, is Scanbuy’s offering which most observers view as proprietary.
The alternative solution is the model announced by the GSMA (News - Alert) http://www.gsmworld.com and Neustar http://www.neustar.biz at the recent Mobile World Congress (News - Alert) in Barcelona. [See here http://mobile-barcode.tmcnet.com/topics/mobile-barcode-accelerators/articles/75586-neustar-intros-mobile-barcode-clearinghouse-services.htm]. The pair has created a clearinghouse that they claim will enable advertisers and enterprises to expand their reach and targeting capabilities using 2D barcodes. The clearing is being provided by a neutral entity (Neustar) allows all intermediaries to choose their vendors. The clearinghouse will help establish the standard 2D barcode symbology. It should also help create a standard method for barcode generation so that any reader unit can recognize why the code was generated and take appropriate action. This approach avoids proprietary readers and proprietary codes such as EZ code from Scanbuy. Nevertheless, in Spain Scanbuy is faring well with furnishing its reader software to mobile phone suppliers; six of the seven top cell phone suppliers have signed deals with Scanbuy.
However, a clearinghouse plays another important role; like a bank, it clears revenues among the participating parties. This clearing process could be made by bilateral agreements between operators or by establishing a standard fee for interoperability. The advantage of the present system in Spain is, of course, economies of scale. Telefónica http://www.telefonica.com, for example, has already preloaded 2D barcode scanning software onto some 60 of its handsets. By Q1 2011, Bulkeley estimates that some 50 million 2D-barcode-enabled handsets will be circulating in the Spanish market. Perhaps even more impressively, there have been some 10,000 individual registrations for unique barcodes within a year In Spain and of those around 1,400 belong to discrete businesses or organizations, Scanbuy claims.
Internationally, there are some very good reasons why 2D barcode usage is currently confined to small “pockets” of acceptance. Some of this is regulatory. As Francesco Rovetta, Director of Business Development at PayPal (News - Alert) Mobile, explained to Mobile Renaissance, “US regulations do not permit operators there to use their billing capabilities to enable transactions that are not related to telecom. And, even in the case of digital content and applications, there is a limit to the amount operators can bill.”
Rovetta continued, “So there is a need for companies to implement alternative methods of payment and that’s where players like PayPal can be a great help. We have experience, we have eBay (News - Alert), and we have a large number of merchants we work with across the globe. This experience feeds into the mobile experience we are creating.”
If nothing else, Jonathan Bulkeley appears to have hit a nerve. If all the parties involved in the 2D barcode ecosystem don’t rally around a neutral offering such as the GSMA/Neustar clearinghouse, then pockets of acceptance, dominated by single suppliers, will continue to thrive.
News 
Market Data 
Discover 
