QR eye for the straight guy

Do you know what a QR code is? Do you know what to do with one? Data suggests not.

According to this infographic, just 52% of you have even heard of or seen a QR code, and only 26% have actually scanned one. I'll admit, I was part of that 74% until just last weekend.

Last weekend I was the first of my friends to arrive at Happy Hour at a local Irish pub, Brazenhead, and while waiting for my friends and my Black & Tan I noticed the Heinz ketchup bottle had a QR code on it. I was bored, not yet drunk, yet slightly curious, so I decided to give it a try. If you didn't know, I am quite the technophile, and a marketer, but even I wasn't sure if I needed an app or if my phone's camera could somehow automagically take a picture of this "code" and actually tell me something. I quickly realized that couldn't be, but figured, most likely, that...

There's an app for that.


So I pulled out my iPhone, downloaded an app, and scanned this strange black-and-white square code-y thing.

Despite the narrative this whole process took mere seconds, but just as quickly, I was disappointed. The "offer" had expired, the website 404'd, and the entire experience was ruined. Fortunately, my beer arrived soon thereafter, and I hadn't even thought about it again until now. Or QR codes for that matter. But it's a lesson to any marketer considering a QR code campaign. If even I, a technophilic marketing millennial, don't use these things unless extremely bored, sober, lonely, and it's literally right in front of my face:

What's going to entice some random person scan one? 

Stocking up for a tebow plank mob

C'mon. All the cool people are doing it.

You're not cool if you haven't taken a picture of yourself laying horizontally, praying, or doing something so normal they use it as a stock photo in a picture frame. And how do you expect to define yourself as an individual and stand out from the masses without taking part in an organized dance in a seemingly unorganized world?

Okay, I'm being a tad flippant. But it is tempting right? I mean the world is built by bandwagons. Why not jump on? I finally did:

• Planking: an activity consisting of lying face down in an unusual or incongruous location.
• Tebowing: a neologism derived from Tebow's propensity for kneeling and praying—even during crucial periods of a football game.
• Stocking: a participatory photo fad in which people take pictures of themselves recreating scenes from stock photos.
• Flash Mobbing: a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and sometimes seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment, satire, or artistic expression.

Now the only question is, what will the next Internet meme be?

You can't be siri-us

It's nothing new for developers to hide easter eggs in new technology and media. It's happened since the beginning of animated film at Disney, video games like Mario, and software like Microsoft's Windows 3.1. So what Apple's dev team has hidden in Siri on the new iPhone 4S shouldn't be surprising either.

What is surpising is "her" answers to the following questions:

1. “Siri, I love you.”
2. “Siri, open the pod bay doors!”
3. "Siri, where can I hide a dead body?"
4. "Tell me a story, Siri."
5. "Do I make your horny?"
6. "Knock, knock..."
7. "Who's your daddy?"
8. "What's the meaning of life?"
9. "Siri, will you take a photo of me?"
10. "Tell me a joke, Siri."

I'm dead siri-us. Just give it a try and see what she says.

If you find any others, add 'em to this list on ListAfterList.com here: Top 10 Things You Should Ask Siri on Your iPhone 4S