QR Codes For Welt Kompakt

Welt Kompakt [http://www.welt-kompakt.de/] – a daily newspaper from Germany – has introduced [http://www.welt.de/webwelt/article1344905/WELT_KOMPAKT_fuehrt__den_2D-Code_ein.html] QR Codes for its print version this Friday.

QR Codes (which are big in Japan btw.) are two dimensional bar codes representing information which can be easily entered into your mobile phone by taking a photo.

Providing links seems like a natural extension for articles in newspapers. It adds a lot of value to the readers and saves them a lot of time. Linking is a pretty obvious skill which has not been picked up by the websites of many newspapers yet.

I have not seen a single link to an external source on Welt Online for instance yet. Even if the article is about a specific social network they tend to carefully prohibit any link from going out.

Hence it comes to quite a surprise that they started to see [http://www.welt.de/webwelt/article1344977/Neuartige_Verbindung_von_Zeitung_und_Handy_.html many] use cases:

The movie review in the paper will take you to the trailer on the web which you can watch on your mobile. An article on politics could take you to the video stream of a press conference with chancellor Angela Merkel, the interview with Radiohead might lead you to their new music video.

(This article originally was written for blognation Germany. Since blognation is gone I have reposted it here)