Clickable Print and the evolution of the print medium

30,000 feet
It's pretty clear that print will start growing as QR and other 2d codes are incoporated in print product. One might say that clickable print is both a table of contents for content on the web and the off ramp to present web content in physical space.

10,000 feet
The view changes depending on the focus. My focus is education with a side focus on health and government. I think there is much to learn from marketing, but advertising and marketing are still too competitive and disruptive. It's hard for printers to add value. Education and health need the insights of marketing and the technology we provide.

On the ground
It's too complicated for any general statements or insights. That's where each PSP has to figure it out for themselves.

I've started a twitter persona to store various use cases from 10,000 feet. You can follow @clickableprint

Use Cases from 10,000 feet
PD | refers to Professional Development. It's the low hanging fruit in K-12 education.

PD | Education 2029 ? Compare and contrast: vid Kaplan Univ. http://ilnk.me/1657 View from Natl Assoc of Scholars Http://ilnk.me/NAS .

PD | "rather than try to train better leaders (teachers) we need to reboot the concept" http://ilnk.me/1662 - Poughkeepsie Day School

PD | Education 2029 ? Compare and contrast: vid Kaplan Univ. http://ilnk.me/1657 View from Natl Assoc of Scholars Http://ilnk.me/NAS .

Edu | Worst Idea To Promote Parent Involvement Ever" http://tinyurl.com/ydzaeer || ClckPr to send Mom an SMS when non compliance occurs.

'Meet the Press' transcript for January 24, 2010 http://ilnk.me/165e || Could be great in clickable print for civic class.

Another consolidation? Quad to Buy World Color. RRD gets a run for the money.

Printer Quad Graphics Expected to Buy World Color Press - WSJ.com:

"Privately held Quad/Graphics Inc. of the U.S. is expected to acquire Canadian rival World Color Press Inc. for roughly $1.3 billion to $1.4 billion, said people familiar with the matter, in a deal that would create North America's second-largest commercial printer by sales, behind industry giant R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co.

Under the plan, these people said, shareholders of Toronto-listed World Color, which prints such magazines as Sports Illustrated and Rolling Stone, as well as the Crate & Barrel catalog and Yellow Book directory, would get a 40% stake in the newly combined company. The new company would then list on a U.S. stock exchange, they said, in effect bringing Quad/Graphics, whose clients include Newsweek, GQ and the L.L. Bean catalog, to the public market for the first time since its founding in 1971."

Now that we know where Print fits, what's next?

It's become pretty clear that Print fits into the emerging communication ecology as being the on and off ramp to Web Squared. As the web becomes the internet of things, Print is the table of contents.

Now it's just a matter of following who is going to get what in the ensuing land grab. But that's for a different post.

Today, visual search got back on my radar. My bet is that is the end of game of the next 10 or 15 years. It will be fascinating to see how that plays out. Imagine what that could mean for education, health and government. It will probably also be pretty neat for marketing.

It started yesterday with a couple of tweets between me and Ricoh Innovations Labs.

jamois RT @jasonpinto: Excellent application of QR Codes described by @ToughLoveForX: http://ilnk.me/1698

@jamois http://aha.sh/U - scan, author qr codes. Plus analytics. Social networking. iPhone, Mac, Windows. oh & FREE || pretty cool.

jamois @ToughLoveforX "http://aha.sh/U -...qr codes....FREE || pretty cool." - thx but check out what comes next: "visual search" http://aha.sh/VS

Me:
@jamois brilliant! --->http://aha.sh/VS | Until it's ready for prime time QR? BTW "clickable paper" check @clickableprint Great minds:-)

Me:
Ricoh Rocks! Check out visual search post..vids and links. http://ilnk.me/16a1 The next step to @clickableprint

RicohInnovation RT @ToughLoveforX: Ricoh Rocks! Check out visual search post..vids and links. http://ilnk.me/16a1 The next step to @clickableprint

Moodstocks RT @ToughLoveforX: Spend 4:57 min with @RicohInnovation video on QR, Visual Search and Social Networking Mind blowing ! http://ilnk.me/16a3

Did you know that @Moodstocks "specializes in visual search on the Internet"

Me RT
Moodstocks RT @delunna: A must read! Visual Search, #AugmentedReality and a Social Commons for the Physical World Platform http://bit.ly/7pRP9r

The Money Tweet:
#QR ers MUST read for state of the art on where it's all going. AR and the "no click interface" http://ilnk.me/16aa Smart & Lots of links.

http://ilnk.me/16aa will take you to:
Visual Search, Augmented Reality and a Social Commons for the Physical World Platform: Interview with Anselm Hook

A response to Jim Lyons post on QR. It's about compliance, not marketing.

I tried to post this at Jim's post, but it got complicated. As readers of this blog have probably figured out I don't like complicated.

The original post, most definitely worth the click is at Jim's blog. The post is January Observations -- From the QR Code sandbox — will It help printing?

My comment

Jim,
Thanks for the kind words. Just wanted to share a thought about
"the question remains whether this technology is good for printing."

I have commercial print experience and dna. But I have been following the conversation about MPS and MFP every since Greg Walters, Art Post and You got on my RSS and email notification.

Another under appreciated fact of QR is that it is possible to encode a Purl - a personalized url. This might turn out to be a big deal for MPS because it allows the capture of when a particular person either clicked on the code, or when to the human readable URL.

The issue is not advertising, it is compliance. Just one use case to give you an idea of what I mean:

A large organization is required by law to inform their employees of X. And they are required to be able to produce proof that the employee was appropriately notified.

By using a Personalized Url, changing into a human readable URL - through link shortening - and also embedding that Url inot a 2d Code, one could print out a notification at the MFP.

Then one can capture in a colud based data base whether that person went to the URL to read the document. Even more important, it will give management timely information about who didn't yet click on the document.

Once the manager has that info, she can send an email the next day, "Dear X, I asked you to look at the document yesterday. Please do so today."

My own interest is in high school education. The same process could be very useful in that context, especially in addressing the problem of students who get lost.

At any rate, if this process proves out, it's a very low cost - high value addition to any MPS contract. As the margin on boxes keeps getting slimmer and slimmer, I would think it would be an interesting proposition for Independent MPS.

What if an MFP were a news output device?

In the States, a new form of journalism is emerging. As of today, it's gotten on my radar in Texas, California and Connecticut.

CT Mirror is nnother new business model for Journalism at the State level http://ilnk.me/166e It seems similar to @texastribune

California Watch: The latest entrant in the dot-org journalism boom http://ilnk.me/166f

There are different business models for each outfit. But each a web only. Web only is a niche market. Only print and TV are mass market medium.

Consider and A4 or A3 with human readable URL's and QR codes, that takes the headline and the lede from the XML on the newspaper site. Or takes a twitter stream with HR URLs and QR code.

Or if not an MFP, then a PDF as a newspaper insert or supplied to print with the run. Or if not a PDF, then a 24 page newspaper.

Then earn some revenue with ads from NGO's and Government Social Service.