DIMOCO Powers Mobile Tags With NeoReader

DIMOCO, a full solution mobile service provider offering mobile marketing, mobile messaging and payment, as well as mobile campaigns, has partnered with NeoMedia and Gavitec to provide mobile tagging solutions using the NeoReader.

Based off the award winning Lavasphere technology developed in Germany by Gavitec, the NeoReader features NeoMedia's patented resolution technology combined with Gavitec's ultra-small footprint and platform independent algorithms. It is able to read and decipher all common non-proprietary 2D codes (Data Matrix, QR, Aztec, Maxi) as well as URL embedded 2D codes and all 1D UPC/EAN/Code 128 open source codes. The NeoReader supports direct and indirect code linking, which guarantees maximum interoperability with already existing platforms like 2D Data Matrix Semacodes, and Japanese QR links. This allows the user to click on a variety of codes with a single application installed on their mobile device.

According to DIMOCO's website, "Mobile Tagging offers more mobile experience with only one click. Mobile Tagging shows you a brand new method in communicating with your target group. With taking a picture of the 2D code (the tag) the end-user instantly gets the information (news, coupons, sweepstakes) behind it."

In addition to mobile tagging, DIMOCO is also utilizing Gavitec's mobile ticketing and mobile coupon solutions.

In September 2006, a new world record in mobile ticketing was set by DIMOCO and NeoMedia's Gavitec. The two companies took part in Vienna’s World Records Day, held on the famous Prater on September 19th to showcase attempts at records to be submitted to Guinness® World Records™. Dr. Christian Steinborn, NeoMedia's COO, said more than 10,000 automated tickets were issued for the event, including 7,000 tickets which were “validated,” making them eligible to establish a world mark in mobile ticketing. "The true benefits of new ticketing technology," he said, "are time and cost savings, as well as easy handling for visitors and organizers alike."

“The World Record Day was a day full of records,” said Rudolf Ivancsits, international key account manager of DIMOCO. “For the team of DIMOCO, including NeoMedia’s Gavitec, we were able to demonstrate that mobile ticketing is able to handle an immense number of visitors."

DIMOCO's portfolio includes everything from campaign planning through software development, all the way to providing technical infrastructure. Since every Austrian, German, Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, Croatian, Slovenian, Ukrainian and Swiss mobile provider is their partner, DIMOCO can cost effectively apply the most up-to-date mobile telephone technologies and carrying mediums (SMS/MMS).

CTIA Forms Code Scan Action Team

At its October 23 meeting in San Francisco, CTIA’s Board of Directors approved a new initiative of CTIA’s Wireless Internet Caucus (WIC) in the area of Cameraphone Barcode Scanning.

CTIA's Code Scan Action Team, comprised of industry representatives, is currently in the process of evaluating solutions to implement Cameraphone Barcode Scanning on wireless phones in the United States. According to its charter, "The Code Scan Action Team will work together to enable unified communication to external stakeholders (such as consumer goods, media, and retailers) that need to hear of a unified approach (technologically and systemically) prior to committing to their initial capital expenditure, technology selection and marketing resources. These external investments are required to drive actual utilization of the cameraphone scanning technologies infrastructure.

It is proposed that the Action Team be limited to the national U.S. wireless carriers until June 30, 2008. In the intervening months, the carriers will collect and analyze data through trial and analysis, and formulate a plan for Cameraphone Scanning Technologies market development.

Numerous opportunities are contingent upon standards being agreed upon and communicated in the areas of symbologies, code resolution, priority functions, value added services, and measurement and reporting.

According to its charter, "The Action Team will articulate conventions for code resolution, either directly through the code or indirectly through server translation."

There are two primary methods of 2D barcode symbology encoding: direct encoding and indirect encoding.

In a direct encoding method, the target information itself is directly encoded in a 2D barcode. The code reader on the mobile phone translates the code data and takes an immediate local action.

Indirect encoding is the process of linking the target information to an index (364528) and putting that unique identifier into a 2D barcode. The code reader on the mobile phone reads the 2D code and sends the code data over the Internet to a central resolution server that will tell the mobile phone what action is associated with the index.

The Indirect encoding method offers obvious advantages over the direct method, and presents huge application areas for carriers, handset manufacturers, consumer goods, media, and retailers.

Listed below are just a few of the many advantages of indirect encoding:

* Indirect codes are small: The code size varies depending on the amount of information encoded in it. As indirect codes only compress an index, they have the adequate size to be successfully read and decoded by the mobile phone. However direct codes, containing a URL for example, are mostly too large and not appropriate for printed media.

* Indirect codes compress unlimited information: While direct codes allow limited data to be carried in the code in order to be read by the code reader application, indirect codes can be created limitless. The target information linked to the index contained in the code can vary and be as long as the client or code owner needs it. The variety of inputs possible is lager for indirect than direct codes that can contain UPC, EAN, ISBN and other product codes as well as keywords.

* Indirect codes ensure added durability and maintain advertising continuality: The central resolution server manages the content indexed to each indirect code, allowing clients and code owners to easily update information without having to change codes. New or additional information would simply involve changing the content linked to the index and not the code itself. Indirect codes remain the same and keep linking to the proper data while direct codes are unusable any longer. Using the direct method, if a website changes and a webpage is removed, the URL encoded within the 2D barcode will be incorrect. The direct code will not link to the appropriate website and all materials (e.g. newspapers, ads, billboards, books, etc.) where the direct code has been placed will be erroneous and out of use. However, the index encoded 2D barcode remains the same making indirect codes durable and always up-to-date.

* Indirect codes make the most of the advertisement utilization: Besides their durability and long-term use, small and smart indirect codes can be discreetly placed in any kind of print or attached on any information display surface, such as advertising panels, billboards, walls, enabling any mobile phone user to access digital information and therefore maximizing the advertising utilization. As advertising space costs in given media vehicle are significant and mostly very high, the budget-minded advertiser or agency will not use any ad space for large direct codes which will impact the communication's goals.

* Indirect codes maximize the addressable handset market: Being small, discreet and durable, indirect codes can be read and decoded by a large number of mobile phones currently available on the market and not just a handful of handsets. Depending on the camera lens, optics, resolution and illumination, not every mobile phone is able to read large direct 2D barcodes.

* Indirect codes offer a wide range of exciting applications: The ability for individuals and corporations to interact with the electronic world will allow economies to be much more efficient and consumer-product companies to make their products more attractive. This also will revolutionize the ad industry by providing a one-to-one, permission-based, personalized and profiled dialog with customers. Indirect codes can be used in a wide range of application areas, from commercial to social to educational. For example, indirect codes can be used in grocery stores to get recipes and nutritional information on products. They can be used for advertising purposes, to download a trailer or music off a movie promotional poster, for instance. Or simply to help users to find the nearest cinema or call up an online box office to locate movie times. Indirect codes can be embedded in business cards to link to constantly updated contact information. Moreover, indirect codes can be used in museum and galleries, where visitors can download high-quality audio and visual content about exhibits in multiple languages. Tourists can even retrieve sightseeing information as they walk through a city.

As cameraphones become increasingly common and cameraphone barcode scanning technologies mature, an alliance of proactive carriers can create conditions that will encourage market growth. Given the aggressive timeline for the CTIA's Code Scan Action Team, we should have a good idea by Summer 2008 of its continued effectiveness in helping the industry reach win-win solutions.

GSMA & OMA To Drive Mobile Code Standards

NeoMedia Technologies, the global leader in camera-initiated transactions for mobile devices, and Gavitec AG - mobile digit, both co-founders of the Mobile Codes Consortium (MC2), today announced that the MC2 steering group has convinced the GSM Association (GSMA) and the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA), two of the global mobile phone industry's representative bodies, to drive the global adoption of mobile marketing using 2D barcodes.

MC2, the cross-industry group created to promote unified standards in camera cell-phone barcode reading technology, has brought large-scale adoption of mobile marketing closer to reality. The members of the group, NeoMedia Technologies Inc., Publicis Groupe, Hewlett-Packard, Deutsche Telekom, KPN, Nokia, Qualcomm and Telefonica O2 Europe, have convinced the representatives of the GSMA and OMA that the time has come to cooperate globally and advance the mobile barcodes standards in partnership.

Dr. Frank Müller, Director of Intellectual Property and Strategy at NeoMedia Technologies, said: "The commitment of GSMA and OMA gives important impetus for the worldwide development of mobile marketing based on using 2D barcodes. The barcode reading technology, enabling people with mobile phones to read mobile codes and immediately connect to content and services, makes the mobile Internet much more accessible for consumers and likewise offers advertisers various opportunities for innovative, well-directed and cost-effective marketing approaches with precise response evaluation."

William "Chip" Hoffman, CEO of NeoMedia Technologies, said: "We are creating the mobile equivalent of 'hyper-text' for broadcast and print media. Like SMS, a standard technology used by all carriers world-wide, mobile barcodes allow Brands and Consumers to interact on static media the same way they do on the web; cross-country and cross-carrier. With this wireless technology and the associated systems supporting it, old-media becomes new-media."

This month, the GSMA, the global trade association representing 700 GSM mobile phone operators, and OMA, the leading industry forum for developing market driven, interoperable mobile service enablers, will launch a landmark exercise, which aims to deliver technology and marketing industry standards for mobile codes. Whereas the GSMA is starting to encourage mobile operators to adopt interoperable business models for mobile codes and raise the profile of this technology within the industry, the OMA will work simultaneously to specify the technical standards.

After just nine months of lobbying, plan development and recruitment, the partners of the MC2 have achieved a fundamental milestone and base for further operations. Now that the leading industry bodies are on board and support the standards for mobile barcodes, the MC2 will signal to the marketing industry that it can start planning now about how it will deploy them. Mobile marketing and mobile tagging are now becoming a true reality worldwide and the industry should be prepared for it.

By embracing open standards, full interoperability, and by being barcode symbology agnostic, NeoMedia Technologies provides a global infrastructure to insure that all transactions requested by end users "work" as intended, all parties are compensated correctly, and that the technology achieves mass-adaptation. In doing so, NeoMedia enables a seamless, secure, and utilitarian platform for mobile commerce, advertising, and communication. NeoMedia's mission is to offer new ways to make mobile internet transactions effortless and more accessible while enhancing customer convenience, facilitating a closer customer relationship, saving costs and providing new business opportunities for all participants in the wireless value chain.

GSMA and OMA Commit To MC2 Initiative

Mobile Codes Consortium (MC2) initiative leads to GSM Association (GSMA) and Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) activities to accelerate mass mobile marketing using 2D barcodes.

MC2, the cross-industry group created to promote unified standards in camera cell-phone barcode reading technology, has brought large scale adoption of mobile marketing closer to reality.

The group, led by global marketing agency Publicis, Hewlett-Packard, Deutsche Telekom, Gavitec, KPN, NeoMedia, Nokia, Qualcomm and Telefonica O2 Europe, has persuaded fellow members of the GSMA and OMA, two of the global mobile phone industry’s representative bodies, that the time is ripe to work in partnership to set worldwide mobile barcode standards.

This month, the GSMA, the global trade association representing 700 GSM mobile phone operators, and OMA, the leading industry forum for developing market driven, interoperable mobile service enablers, will embark on a landmark exercise, which aims to deliver technology and marketing industry standards for mobile codes. The GSMA is launching a work stream to encourage mobile operators to adopt interoperable business models for mobile codes and raise the profile of this technology within the industry, while the OMA will work simultaneously to specify the technical standards.

Tim Kindberg, of HP Laboratories and co-chairman of the MC2, said: "Barcode reading technology makes it much easier for people with mobile phones to click straight from paper or displays to content and services. You just point the camera and click to connect. This will make the mobile internet much more accessible."

Thomas Curwen, of Publicis Dialog and co-chairman of MC2, said: "Mobile barcodes will make advertising much more efficient. Customers clicking straight from, say a poster, to the Internet on their mobile device – will make traditional display advertising as interactive as banner ads. With the added advantage that advertisers can track and measure which ads create the highest click-through rates." Curwen added, "It is unique for an ad agency to be leading technological change on such a scale – and we are doing this because it will help make us more efficient."

The news follows a nine-month period of lobbying, plan development and recruitment of partners by the MC2 to make standards a reality. Now that the leading industry bodies are driving the standards for mobile barcodes, the MC2 will start alerting the marketing industry that it can start planning now about how it will deploy them. Mobile marketing is now becoming a true reality and the industry needs to be ready.

William "Chip" Hoffman, CEO of NeoMedia Technologies, said: "We are creating the mobile equivalent of the Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) for mobile content. A standard technology used industry wide, which, like a Bank-card, allows the consumer-facing mark of instant access to mobile content, the bar code, to be used regardless of a subscriber’s manufacturer or service provider of choice."

The range of potential applications for mobile codes is enormous, and the impact for brands and on consumers is wide-reaching:

* For years, the ad industry has tried to work out which location or which execution of a campaign performed best in delivering leads. Phone numbers and long URLs have been tried but nothing has been very satisfactory. Mobile codes have much more to offer a marketer: the user can point and click it faster, thereby reducing the effort to respond, with dramatic effects on the results. By simply pointing the camera at a mobile code, the user instantly interacts with the marketing message. At the end of the campaign, marketers can measure "click-through rates" (by time of day, progression through to sale, and even time spent), making paper as measurable as the internet. Instantly, we can know which location or execution generated the highest response and sales.

* A possible application for a financial services client selling travel insurance might be a poster in the waiting lounge of an airport showing a matrix of ‘number of passengers’, ‘destination’ and ‘time away’. At the point of departure, the 40% of people who normally leave the UK without travel insurance, could click the corresponding mobile code and get a rough quote online, and even buy, using one of the emerging secure mobile payment systems

* Or imagine a system that can tell you when your bus is coming, without the need to build and maintain the LED screens at every bus stop (reducing cost and energy usage). A simple mobile code at each bus stop could give you the same info and even the weather forecast.

Torulf Jernstrom, of Nokia, said: "The key advantage of mobile barcodes is that it makes discovery of internet services very easy for the consumer hence a powerful tool for marketers and advertisers. A prerequisite for widespread deployment of this concept is an open, interoperable standard which is now developed in collaboration with GSMA and OMA."

Marcel Annaka of KPN said: "Mobile codes will change the way we look at printed media. Printed media will finally become personalized and interactive as Mobile codes enable an extremely user-friendly connection between offline media and the internet on mobile devices."

Thomas Curwen added, "Now that we are making real progress, we will now start work with the marketing industry to ensure that their needs are taken into consideration in the developing standards."

QUALCOMM Joins The Mobile Codes Consortium

Pressure continues to mount for industry standards as wireless industry giant QUALCOMM joins the Mobile Codes Consortium (MC2) – a cross-company group setup to promote unified standards in camera cell-phone barcode reading technology.

QUALCOMM plays a vital role in creating technologies that move the wireless industry forward, and they license these technologies to over 100 manufacturers, including virtually every leading telecom equipment and consumer electronics brand name in the world. Leveraging CDMA expertise, the company has become the leading designer and supplier of CDMA chipsets and system software. QUALCOMM's Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless™ (BREW™) provides a common platform for different types of wireless devices and applications, enabling hardware and software developers to create new products much more quickly and cost-effectively.

MC2’s aim is to accelerate the adoption of code-reading technologies that will enable users of mobile camera-phones pointed at a printed or displayed 2D barcode, to activate the phone to connect to a particular web-page, download coupons or other digital mediums, make a phone call or send a text message at the click of a button. Based on the widespread adoption of this technology in Japan and the growing popularity of camera-phones in Asia, Europe, and North America, the Mobile Codes Consortium believes that this will have many important applications for both the marketing and public communications industries.

QUALCOMM joins the original founding members Gavitec, Hewlett-Packard, NeoMedia Technologies, Publicis Groupe, Nokia, Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica O2, and KPN to form MC2’s steering group, which is responsible for guiding the organization.

MC2 Meets In London During OMA World 2007

The Mobile Codes Consortium (MC2) held a meeting in London this past week during Open Mobile Alliance World 2007.

The event offers an opportunity to engage the OMA community in the successes and future direction of the organization, as well as demonstrate the commitment of the OMA to the wireless industry and to the global adoption of mobile data services. OMA World is an informational event open to all OMA members at all levels of membership. Selected invitees from the analyst and media community, as well as guests from other industry organizations are welcome to attend.

According to Torulf Jernstrom, Business Development Manager at Nokia, and Dr. Frank Mueller, Chief Strategist at Gavitec, 20 people attended the Mobile Codes Consortium meeting this past Wednesday in London and the entire initiative was looking very good.

The meeting, which included representatives from Vodafone and Orange, even included reps from Mobile Tag, which was spun off from France's leading mobile software developer Abaxia.

According to HP lab's Tim Kindberg, "The Mobile Codes Consortium is the only body seriously aimed at building a mobile codes ecosystem. It is setting the standards that others will follow. It's where Nokia -- not to mention Telefonica O2 -- is really at with mobile codes."

Nokia and Gavitec are both members of the MC2 Steering Group, along with HP Labs, Publicis Groupe, NeoMedia Technologies, Telefonica O2, Deutsche Telekom, and KPN.

Interview With NeoMedia CEO William Hoffman

NeoMedia Technologies' CEO William Hoffman talks to bnetTV.com's Nicole Scott at CTIA Wireless I.T. and Entertainment 2007.

NeoReader Reaches 100 Supported Handsets

NeoMedia Technologies and Gavitec AG - mobile digit, are pleased to announce they have expanded the number of supported mobile phones for their co-developed code-reading application – NeoReader – designed to turn a camera phone into a universal 1D and 2D barcode scanner providing one-click access to mobile content.

In addition to the already 78 supported devices, the NeoReader now supports 100 mobile handsets with the addition of the following 22 Nokia Smartphones:

Models: 3250, N91, 5500, N71, N73, N75, N92, E50, N77, E65, E61i, N80, E70, N95, 6290, N76, 6110 Navigator, 5700 XpressMusic, 6120 classic, 6121 classic, E51, N81

Based off the award winning Lavasphere technology developed in Germany by Gavitec, the NeoReader features NeoMedia's patented resolution technology combined with Gavitec's ultra-small footprint and platform independent algorithms. It is able to read and decipher all common non-proprietary 2D codes (Data Matrix, QR, Aztec, Maxi) as well as URL embedded 2D codes and all 1D UPC/EAN/Code 128 open source codes. The NeoReader supports direct and indirect code linking, which guarantees maximum interoperability with already existing platforms like 2D Data Matrix Semacodes, and Japanese QR links. This allows the user to click on a variety of codes with a single application installed on their mobile device.

The NeoReader ushers in and inaugurates a brand new era of innovative mobile enterprise and optical code reading solutions for the wireless industry. Visit get.neoreader.com to download the free application, and instantly transform your mobile phone into a universal code reader.

NeoReader Featured On Google ZXing Website

NeoMedia Technologies and Gavitec AG - mobile digit, are pleased to announce that their co-developed code-reading application – NeoReader – designed to turn a camera phone into a universal 1D and 2D barcode scanner providing one-click access to mobile content, is featured on Google's ZXing website.

ZXing (pronounced "zebra crossing") is an open-source, multi-format 1D/2D barcode reader library implemented in Java. Google's goal is to support the decoding of QR Codes, Data Matrix, and the UPC family of 1D barcodes. It will provide clients for J2ME, J2SE, and Android.

According to Google's Senior Software Engineer and ZXing project owner, Sean Owen, "There are several great readers out there, and there are bits of open-source code already for decoding, but not both at the same time. We want everyone to have access to some great source code to play with, so we decided we'd try an experiment, and open up our in-progress effort. Maybe some of it will be useful to you -- maybe you can help improve it."

"Will this be the best reader ever? Well we hope it gets quite good. Things are far from perfect, and it's hard to top some of the great (native-code) readers out there. No, we primarily hope to provide a solid base of code from which people can derive other implementations, and to which people can submit new, better code. If this helps raise the quality of readers everywhere we've all done our job."

Based off the award winning Lavasphere technology developed in Germany by Gavitec, the NeoReader features NeoMedia's patented resolution technology combined with Gavitec's ultra-small footprint and platform independent algorithms. It is able to read and decipher all common non-proprietary 2D codes (Data Matrix, QR, Aztec, Maxi) as well as URL embedded 2D codes and all 1D UPC/EAN/Code 128 open source codes. The NeoReader supports direct and indirect code linking, which guarantees maximum interoperability with already existing platforms like 2D Data Matrix Semacodes, and Japanese QR links. This allows the user to click on a variety of codes with a single application installed on their mobile device.

The NeoReader ushers in and inaugurates a brand new era of innovative mobile enterprise and optical code reading solutions for the wireless industry. Visit get.neoreader.com to download the free application, and instantly transform your mobile phone into a universal code reader.

NeoMedia Technologies' NeoServer™-OMS

NeoMedia’s NeoServer™-OMS (Optical Messaging Service) is a complete infrastructure with services for generating printed codes, reading those codes, and then acting upon the codes by delivering mobile content.

By linking barcodes and brand names to targeted URL’s, the NeoServer™-OMS allows mobile marketers to promote their products and services directly to consumers, anytime, anywhere. Employing the rich media capabilities of the mobile web, the NeoServer™-OMS is the pre-eminent enabler for mobile marketing campaigns. Now mobile marketers can offer the consumer instant and effortless access to any marketing activity, including contests, coupons, tracking, polling, events, ticketing, direct purchases, mobile entertainment, real time information and more. NeoMedia’s NeoServer™-OMS reaches as far as our imagination.

The NeoServer™-OMS is a robust, reliable, scalable, and extensible infrastructure leading the way for universal code support and interoperability. This infrastructure includes solutions of access technology and resolution services using carrier-grade infrastructure, architecture, and interoperability.

Components

NeoServer™-OMS is composed of mobile handset software and several web services, all of which combine to provide mobile users with the ability to directly retrieve content by either automatically scanning barcodes, or manually entering keywords or barcode numbers.

* Gateway for routing
* Link Manager for code linking and resolution
* Directory service

Advantages

* Each customer’s codes can be housed on a different Resolution Service, if desired
* Gateways handle sorting out Resolution Services
* Gateways can be regional or in carrier infrastructure, shortening network delay
* No single service instance is critical for entire world

Technical highlights

* Scalable and reliable
* Handles increases in load well
* No single point of failure

* Localizable
* Services can be deployed regionally
* Customers can “own” their services

* Flexible
* Service widest possible variety of handsets
* Act as “front end” for other services

* Standards-compliant
* Use industry-standard protocols and systems