Earlier this week, we had the chance to sit down with Jesse Tso, co-founder of MSKYNET, to discuss an interesting personal project that saw Mobile Barcodes create a personal solution for his family.
Renu: Hi Jesse! Could you tell us a little about yourself and what you do?
Jesse: Yes, I’m one of the Co-Founders of MSKYNET. We specialize in helping companies integrate with SPARQCodes™ (Mobile Barcodes) and figure out cool and interesting ways that this technology can help elevate their mobile friendly campaign experience.
Renu: Can you talk about creating the barcode wall for your grandmother?
Jesse: Gladly! It started when I was on a trip to visit my Grandparents in Montreal. I was having dinner with my cousin and he asked me if I had heard the latest news and that was my Grandma had just got a cell phone. Intrigued, I couldn’t believe it, my Grandma is in her 80′s! When I finally met with her later that evening she shared with me that she wasn’t that thrilled about her mobile experience because of her arthritis and in general those small buttons and complicated menus were not easy to navigate. In her opinion, smartphones are not really all that smart. THis immediately sparked a vision in my mind and that was to create a large poster with pictures of my cousins, family, urgent contacts and below each picture would be a Mobile Barcode for that specific contact. All she had to do was snap a picture of the person that she wanted to call and boom, instant-dialing.
Renu: What was her reaction to the project?
Jesse: She was initially very skeptical. Being more on the traditional side, she didn’t want to learn how to use anything new and she was already frustrated enough with just trying to make a simple phone call with her existing handset. So, I tried to reset her complete mobile experience by saying, “please forget all that you know about cell phones and let’s start over.” I configured one of the side hot keys on her phone to immediately invoke the scanning app when pressed and I turned off all the confirmation settings such that as soon as the scanning software decodes a SPARQcode it will immediately invoke the call-to-action.
I demonstrated to my Grandma the following:
1. Hit the side hot key button and the scanning app is automatically launched in to scanning mode. 2. Aim the mobile phone camera at the code below the picture of the person that you want to call. 3. Hold the phone for a second in front of the picture and the call is immediately made (scanner works in video mode, so no need to click any more buttons, and it works great with jittery hands). 4. My phone started to ring immediately and my Grandma had a smile that will last me a lifetime.
Renu: We’ve seen some great use of Mobile Barcodes commercially, do you think in the neat future we’ll see more applications like your wall? Barcodes for social change, personal artifacts and the like?
Jesse: We are definitely seeing glimpses of the amazing potential for the different uses of codes. Being from Seattle, we love the coffee shop setting and a big eye sore that I commonly see are some beautiful artworks on display that have a Sharpie’d label that is not worthy. Artists spend so much time on their works, and I feel that it does not do it justice to have a small label scratched with basic information. I want to know the name of the art piece, the reason for it and maybe even pricing information if it were for sale. We have partnered with Gallerish and are now piloting a free service where artists can get custom labels made for each of their artworks. We print each of the labels on a business card form factor and on it is not only specific information but they also have a unique SPARQCode such that a customer who is interested in a specific art piece can scan and be immediately taken to a microsite where they can get more information about the piece and other artworks by the same artist. This is also a great way for people to tag artworks that they might want to purchase later.
Renu: How do you see Mobile Barcodes factoring in to the future of our day to day lives?
Jesse: I think that the great thing about this technology is that it not only makes traditional things easier (phone calls, loading webpages) but it also makes things that were traditionally infeasible to be extremely convenient. I have no doubt that we are going to start seeing barcodes everywhere but what I look forward to most are the ingenious new ways that they are going to be used and how they can have a positive impact on our daily lives.
