Before there was NFC (near field communication), now built into the Nexus S, to read tags embedded in physical objects via electromagnetic radiation, there was another method of doing the same thing with light (just another electromagnetic wave length), which did not catch on as much as I wished it had – because I think, it’s darn cool and it’s so much cheaper to print a QR code on something instead of buying these NFC chips. Sure, communication is one-way but when comparing the cost of printing a little square on a sticker with the current cost of NFC stickers (about a dollar) the choice for the occasional user seems to be clear.

But if we look at Google for guidance, it appears the QR code might be dead. They had started to promote QR codes heavily a while back with Google Local stickers (with a QR code) sent to local businesses, but that is now all over and Android appears to be heading – again heavily – into support for NFC.

Oh well, but you can nicely play with QR codes and the error correction even allows to mess with the codes to a degree.

I did just that and came up with this custom QR code. It is pointless for this article because you are already on the site this code points to, but I had fun playing with it (the original code was generated by Raco Industries.) And then I went wild with photoshop and made my very own vanity QR code.

Take a look, get out your phone and see if it really works…

Edit a few years later: Only things (about you) you don’t want on the internet any longer will stay there for sure. The link above to Raco Industries is not in that class, and as such, it has disappeared. Now you could go to QR.io or just search Google for QR generator.

And another edit a few days/weeks after pointing you to QR.io: I found out that that website is not really creating free codes, but once that point to their own website from which they then forward to where you want the visitor to go. What’s free, is the generation of the code and a few days of ‘free’ forwarding. After that you will have to shell out some green-bucks.

Took me a while to find a generator that actually generates codes that directly point to where you want your visitors to go. This is something I can recommend: https://opensourcetoolkit.com/qr-generator

Generally, I don’t object that QR.io and all the others like it want to make money – what I dislike is the sneekiness, not disclosing that you will have to create an account and pay $35 for whatever time period to have your code continue to work.