When you look at a print or video ad when you're out and about, what do you do if it's interesting? If its interesting enough, you'll try and commit it to memory so you can check it out when you get home on the net. But what are the chances of that happening? close to zero first time round probably. The more you see the ad, the more likely you are to remember it, but still its pretty ineffective. After all, if they're trying to sell something to you, you shouldn't have to put in so much effort just to check them out - you're doing them a favour by checking it out.

Enter 2D barcodes.

WTF I hear you ask? They're essentially barcodes, but can store more data than your typical barcode, not that it really matters to you. They look like this:

What do they have to do with advertising? Well among many other uses, advertisers can use them to store information on them, and viewers of the ad can easily 'consume' the ad using their camera phones. It's best to explain using an example, so here goes:

Let's say you've spent the arvo at the local shopping centre buying crap and now you're sitting down in the food court having a bite before you go home. On the table, you notice an ad for the sequel of your favourite movie coming out which you're ecstatic about. You want to find out more, watch the trailer, and make sure you remember when it comes out.

Without 2D barcodes: You begin to get out a pen and scribble down the website address on the back of a receipt, or worse, you pull out your phone and try to punch it in to the notes section with the annoyingly unsuitable numeric keypad. You get home, flick the TV on and forget, or you throw all the receipts out after you unpacked everything.

With 2D barcodes: You pull out your 3G camera phone, take a photo of the 2D barcode for the trailer, and your phone automatically starts downloading the trailer for you to watch. After watching it, it asks whether you want to put the release date in your phone's calendar, and whether you want to add the movie's website to your 'todo' list so you can check it out when you get home.

How much easier is that! No mental effort on your behalf, and the advertiser's automatically sold you and made sure you'll remember. Back to the example:

You go to your favourite clothing store, and rack up a huge debt on your credit card. The cashier tells you because you've spent more than 200 bucks, you can come to the VIP sales evening next month. Its invite only, so she asks you to scan the 2D barcode on the receipt, you 'scan' it with your phone, the invite comes up and again you get prompted if you want to be reminded closer to the date.

She then tells you that they're doing a special promotion and they're giving away a free phone theme to every customer. You decide, why not, it's free, so you scan the barcode on the counter, and your phone automatically goes out to the net and downloads it, then asks if you want to install and make it active.

Again, no more bits of paper to carry around, no more forgetting or double-booking important events. Advertisers also get to increase the immediate satisfaction of their customer too via the phone theme download. Back to the example:

Having spent every last cent on all your credit cards, you decide its about time you call it a day. You go to the bus stop, realise the bus isn't coming for another 5 minutes so you find a seat and wait. You glance around and realise that next to you is an ad for one of your favourite songs at the moment, Silverchair's Straight Lines. You decide that'll be a good song to listen to on the way back home, so you 'scan' the 2D barcode on the ad, and your phone asks if you want to purchase and download the song for $1. You agree, it downloads, and you listen to it all the way home, over and over again.

This time, not only has the advertiser made sure you remember the ad and its content, it's also managed to score an immediate purchase, which is probably double-points in their books.

There's a lot more that you can do with them. They work because they allow you to convert human-readable information into machine-readable information easily. Humans can read ads easily, but devices can't, even if its something as simple as a website address. OCR, or the process of machines turning pictures into text, is a) extremely process-intensive, b) error-prone, c) always one step behind as advertisers design creative ways to entice readers to read, e.g. new fonts, writing it vertically, funny colours etc. This kind of stuff is also available with Bluetooth advertising being trialed around the world right now, but BT implementations are incomplete on phones, aren't 100% all the time, and are expensive for the advertiser, especially if they get hacked and spread viruses instead.

There's already many initiatives trying to harness this. Microsoft launched Windows Live Barcode, then subsequently took it down (maybe they're doing something else with it...). A startup, named Smartpox, has gone even further. They've actually created the Java app required to make it happen, and designed a social site for users to create and decode barcodes, so users can for example, include a barcode on an invite with a URL to a map encoded. Or users can include it on their business card and if recipients want to contact them, all they have to do is scan it your phone will sort the rest out.

This is really cool stuff, and it'll become very important as we move into a world where our lives are lived in the physical world and the web simultaneously. Virtual worlds are big, but won't be anywhere as big as the physical web-connected world. No matter what virtual world exists or how big or good it is, the vast majority of the world will live in the physical web-connected world most of the time, and that'll be where the money lies.

The problem with this technology is that it hasn't reached mass adoption. And there is really only one type of company holding people back - mobile phone service providers. The most progressive in Australia is 3 (with the Australian launch of its X-Series imminent), followed by Telstra with its NextG network and the others trail behind. Still, these companies are either too comfortable with their current oligopolistic state, or lack the imagination web companies have, because none of them, anywhere in the world, have launched anything significantly revolutionary in the last few years. The iPhone will provide a small shake up, especially in the areas of design, but nowhere near big enough to revolutionise the industry.

Phone providers, and phone manufacturers need to realise that mobile phones are not phones primarily anymore, they're not even just a communication device - they're an extension of its owner, it's their lifeline, it's their brain's connection to the net. In fact, I'd go further - it's their second brain.

They need to break free from the traditional business model of making money from calls primarily, and start exploring making money from its many other uses. The first company to do that will benefit enormously - the market is there but largely untapped. Money may right now be in the enterprise market with Blackberries and other push-email devices, but don't forget the up and coming generations, those who have grown up with the web. Helio and Amp'd in the States are trying to master that market, but even they are not revolutionary enough. If people think Blackberries were connected enough, they haven't gazed far enough into the web's crystal ball.

Once they harness this, advertisers would kill to get access. No more mass-targeted advertising; they finally get to get inside people's heads with the user's implicit permission. It's an advertiser's dream - targeted, seen, effective advertising, that gets results and don't piss people off.

It's about time someone with a thorough understanding of how the under 25 demographic thinks, the drive and capability to keep up with our fast-changing world, and the ability to predict and realise wacky ideas, come forward, kick some phone providers' ass, and show them how it should be done.