14 DAY TRIAL // Google is just one of the big proponents of QR codes, two-dimensional bar codes that come in quite handy on mobile devices, but the technology is still not very popular in the US, or anywhere outside of Japan, really. That isn't stopping anyone, though, and Google has added a very neat trick to its URL-shortening service goo.gl, the ability to generate QR codes for the shortened links.
The move was announced by Google's Matt Cutts, head of the webspam team at the search engine and a public face for all things related to search. "Goo.gl learned a new trick today! Take http://goo.gl/727X and add ‘.qr’ to get a QR code: http://goo.gl/727X.qr," he tweeted. That's all there really is to it, for the moment. Every time you create a shortened link with goo.gl, you can also create an accompanying QR code by simply adding ‘.qr’ at the end of the link.
QR codes can prove really useful in a variety of situations. The codes themselves can hold all manners of data, text, links, even images, but the most common way they are used is to link to additional data about a product or to a website. The practicality of QR codes comes from the fact that they can be easily read by any camera phone and there are plenty of apps that can translate the codes into useful data.
The technology is very popular in Japan, but hasn't taken off elsewhere. Google is trying to make QR codes more common and has sent out 100,000 stickers to local businesses in the US, each containing a QR code linking to an entry on Google's business directory. Facebook is also testing QR codes for profiles and status updates.
Google's URL shortener, goo.gl, was launched late last year after URL shorteners became very popular, spurred by Twitter's incredible growth. The service is only officially available through the Google Toolbar and FeedBurner, but there are plenty of ways of using it without installing the toolbar.