Piecing Together a Fragmented Industry

The mobile barcode ecosystem is full of unique point solutions and competing applications that scan barcodes and manage barcode campaigns. While each is interesting and may be useful in their own right, they are also frequently incompatible with each other.  Choosing the right platform to support your mobile marketing campaign can be a confusing process and a risky proposition. This is an industry wide challenge that all technologists face and it’s a problem that inhibits widespread market growth and consumer adoption.

There are number of factors that drive this fragmentation, but here are three important ones to consider:

1) Multiple barcode symbologies

There are many different types of symbologies or languages in the mobile barcode world. We’re all familiar with 1-D barcodes.  We see them everywhere, on consumer packaging and especially when making a purchase in most any retail store. 2-D mobile barcodes are the same basic idea, except there is less of a universal standard for all of them and they vary widely in their purpose. These mobile barcodes are mostly square in shape but the “symbols” inside them vary.  For example, there are open access symbologies such as QR and data matrix barcodes which are the most common. Then there are a number of unique and proprietary symbologies as well.  All of these options require scanning devices to know how to read each one.  That’s the chief problem — not every provider of barcode scanners wants to support the proprietary barcode symbology of another company.  So, brands and other promoting barcode campaigns are left asking the question: which symbology gives me the best market reach?

2) Mobile barcode readers

There are a lot of barcode readers that a consumer can download to his or her mobile device.  These readers can be downloaded from mobile application storefronts, pre-loaded on mobile devices, or discovered.  Some of these reader applications are focused on specific purposes, such as price comparison shopping.  Others can be used for more general purposes like scanning barcodes in a printed advertisement.  With all of the possible barcode symbologies (some of which are proprietary) and all of the available mobile devices, developers must choose which types of barcodes and which devices to support.  It’s a labor-intensive process to do this well on a global scale.

3) Proprietary campaign management platforms

Several companies have developed robust campaign management platforms that allow you to create a barcode and promote their barcode readers to read that code.  These platforms may work well but still don’t solve the problem of reaching a truly global audience.  What are the advantages of advertising a barcode that only works with one kind of phone or can’t be used with popular barcode readers?  There may be some, but it clearly limits the value for most kinds of mobile marketing.

AT&T recently launched its own 2D barcode generator based on a proprietary system so any codes that are generated from it can only be read with an AT&T code scanner. The folks at 2D Code wrote an interesting review of this on their blog: Use the AT&T Code Generator and Show Your Ignorance. The blog title is a little harsh.  After all, initiative is the first step to driving general awareness and adoption, but there’s still a bigger question left unanswered by these closed solutions: How can all of the proprietary platforms work together to create a robust and valuable market for everyone?

Despite these obstacles, this market fragmentation can be overcome (see Compatibility Key to Mobile Barcode Success.) At Neustar, we recognize the reach and scale that are required for barcodes to become an effective advertising medium. We also recognize that there are many different participants that need to interconnect for this reach and scale to become a reality. Mobile network operators play an important role in proliferating the use of barcodes among their subscribers. Equally important is the role that brands and media publishers play in educating consumers about this powerful new call to action.

Having multiple, competitive solutions in the market is a good thing, as it provides users of the technology with more choices. As a trusted and neutral third party, Neustar can help make all these competitive solutions work together through an interoperable solution. Neustar offers a centralized barcode clearinghouse service to provide standardization, security and critical mass, making it the critical component for a successful barcode marketplace to flourish.