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ALEXIS MADRIGAL, THANK YOU FOR ALL YOU DO.

Here’s his latest post for the Atlantic.

“QR Codes Are the Roller-Skating Horses of Advertising”

This is a picture of a roller-skating horse named Jimmy. I think he is a great analogy to explain why QR codes, those little black-and-white squares in magazines that you’re supposed to use as a paper hyperlink, continue to proliferate. Let me explain.

[…]

For now … we’ve got QR codes. And it appears we’ll continue to have them. Don’t be fooled, though: this is a novelty more than anything else. I think print magazine ads work and I think digital campaigns work. But when I look at a QR code, I don’t see the future, I see a roller-skating horse. Advertisers deploying QR codes are like people in 1900 wanting transportation to be faster, saying to themselves, “Well, we’ve got horses and we’ve got roller skates – I think we’re on to something! It seems gimmicky, but we’re innovating.” Meanwhile, inventors in garages were building the first janky, bug-ridden automobiles, the Model T just a few years away. 

(Read the full article: QR Codes Are the Roller-Skating Horses of Advertising - Alexis Madrigal - Technology - The Atlantic)