MindTree Blog Archives“… Microsoft Tag. What is Mobile Tagging?: “Microsoft Tag creates unlimited possibilities for making interactive communications an instant, entertaining part of life. They tranform physical media (print advertising, billboards,product packages, information signs, in-store merchandising, or even video images)-into live links for accessing information and entertainment online…”
It’s like a barcode meant for cellphone. You create one on the MS website by filling in a form and associating it with a URL. Cellphones can download a small application (from here) that reads these barcode using the cellphone’s camera.
One can print these barcodes on poster, business-cards, letter heads whatever you like. The consumer/end-user may ‘read’ this barcode via the cellphone camera. The cellphone can then quickly connects to the internet (via the MS site) to get further information (the URL linked to the barcode)
I created one for this blog:
I remember a newspaper in the early days of Dot Com used to publish stories with barcodes and then used to send scanners to it’s subscriber to help them read further on the internet 
– similar concept, but the technology has come further… camera have replaced barcode reader and 3G has replaced the dial-up line.
Posted By: Anshuman Singh – Principal Consultant, MindTree Limited.
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Madheswaran.P says:
Let me add few things to this blog…
Most of the people will still have a question “What is the major difference between this Microsoft Tag and QR (Quick Response) Tag ?” All though both the tags are used for same pupose there are few things which makes Microsoft Tags far better and more reachable.
The main differences with Microsoft Tag are as follows: -
1)Every scan your phone makes gets tracked by MS servers
2)The Microsoft Tags are coloured, as opposed to monochrome for QR Codes
3)Tags can be designed with expiry dates to encourage instant use
4)Tags are designed to be scanned at scale (for outdoor posters etc)
PK says:
Yet another Microsoft way of doing things; but I hope they do it what others could not, monopolize!
Check out Colorzip, UpCode…
The concept has been around for a while in the market, but hasn’t clicked so well, probably due to the non-universality of the way one generates and reads the code. I remember Palm talked about this concept pretty nicely and were futuristic in their thinking at least. (I read this almost 7 years back)They wanted to make a Palm user going to a bookshop, show the barcode reader attached to the Palm Pilot to the barcode of a book, and instantly compare the price of the same book with the other shops around!! Well, they did miss looking at the trends in the technological developments, where we have a camera attached to the mobile phone to do the same now.
This feature has become another add-on for mobile phones with a camera nowadays. From Nokia to Samsung to Sony support this feature with basic image recognition, and of course there is software for me to create this on my mobile phone and make it part of my contact, business card and etc etc..
However, what is interesting to note here is the trend in representation and access of information over the years, and how technologies helping to bridge the gap between representation and the access (also availability). Now you have T Shirts with a Code embedded in it; taking a photograph of a person wearing that T Shirt can provide you the complete history now.
apuarv says:
We are trying to use mobile tags for a lot of applications. But MS tags are not recognized by symbian phones.
Madheswaran.P says:
Hi Apuarv its working in Symbian phones. I am having Nokia N81 with Symbian S60 3rd Edition platform. I used this application and the tags got recognized.
Anshuman Singh says:
Madheswaran, you are right. It’s very similar to the Pepsi QR code. http://www.pepsi.co.uk/QRSteps.aspx and http://www.qrme.co.uk/