I've been working with QR codes since the tail end of last year and have seen an impressive growth in interest from marketers and consumers, with QR codes appearing in all sorts of different places, from the Metro newspaper to estate agents' windows. Doing social media work with the Tag Street twitter account @tag_st, I get to keep an eye on how these codes are being adopted around the world.

Whenever you're working for any length of time with a technology that's new to you, it's quite common to try and think up other uses for it, testing things out in new ways to see if they'll work.

So, a month or so back, I had the idea of creating a QR code trail using little stickers that could lead people from one point to the next. I asked on Twitter to see if any of my followers would scan a random QR code they found on the street. Some seemed curious, others unsure, or even concerned, and others definitely wouldn't. A good cross-section, I thought, and enough to convince me to get some stickers printed up (Moo stickers were perfect for this) and give it a shot.

On 1st June I tweeted the start point of the trail, on the northern part of Tower Bridge and it was soon picked up and retweeted by the London SE1 hyperlocal site.

The same day, the first tag got scanned by a couple of people, but nobody made it to the second tag, or any further than that. Nobody has scanned any of the tags since, despite all (but one, the final tag) still being in place*.

So, what does this leave me thinking about QR codes? Actually, not much differently than I did already... For QR codes to work, and prove useful to to the people they're there to help, they must:

• be clear about the content they'll deliver, and their value
• provide alternative ways to access their content - a short URL
• be easy to see, and invite people passing by who could gain value

These tags had their own unique website address printed on them (at QRtrail.co.uk/something) but that was about it. They didn't provide a clear way that a person could benefit from scanning the code. In fact, the last tag - the treasure if you will - was simply a nice relaxing place to sit, with a nice view of City Hall, Tower Bridge, and Potters Fields park.

If I'm going to try this again, it'll need some rethinking, probably some better publicity, and a prize at the end to encourage people to try it out. Meanwhile, if you'd like to try out a sheet of 6 stickers wherever you are, let me know and I'll sort you out with a set of tags that you can edit at qrtrail.co.uk.

If you'd like to try the SE1 trail, visit QRtrail.co.uk/trail/se1 and let me know how you get on.

* I'll take the stickers down before too long so they don't stay as litter in the city

QR codes are becoming a common sight in the UK, used for all sorts of things, from innovative marketing campaigns to museum guides. The codes can be a great way for people to get more information about a topic right there and then.

In my day job at Inteeka we have been looking at ways of using QR codes in the estate agent industry, where it's important for potential customers to be able to get at property information with ease.

By scanning a QR code, potential tenants or buyers can be taken directly to the estate agent's mobile site, giving detailed information about that specific property; they can find out pricing information, photos of the interior and any other important information, as well as letting the customer register their interest while they are still thinking about it.

To let estate agents try out QR codes for their own portfolio of properties, Inteeka is launching a service called Tag Street, allowing agents to order QR code stickers and signage boards they can attach to their existing property marketing signs. Both boards and stickers will be free (with the exception of postage) and estate agents will only pay if their customers are making use of the boards to view property information.

If you're interested, you can find out more over on the Tag Street site. If you have any feedback, please tweet us @tag_st or get in touch.

I have spent a bit of time this afternoon looking into QR codes, and how they can be customised to incorporate logos or other information. I think the first I saw of this trend was a BBC logo embedded into a QR code, but numerous people have tried it out, such as these ones from Japan, where the QR code has already been used much more widely than in the UK.

If you haven't come across QR codes before, they are much like barcodes, but have the ability to store much more information in them. Perhaps the most common use is to store a website address in them. When scanned with a mobile app like Bakodo or the Google app for the iPhone, the handset can load up the website it points to, and instantly give the user more information about the tag they have scanned.

These 2-dimensional barcodes have a tolerance for errors, meaning that bits of it can be missing or covered up, while still being able to be read and used. That's quite handy, if you want to make them look a little more interesting and include a logo or something to attract people's attention to them. Even better, it's as simple as generating a normal QR code from the Google Charts API (e.g. one for dankarran.com), downloading it, opening it in your favourite graphics editor, and inserting your logo. Check to make sure your scanner can still read it, tweak it if necessary, and you're set. Set the error correction level to the highest value possible (chld=H in the chart URL) and keep your URL as short as possible to give you most flexibility around your logo and less chance of it breaking barcode scanning applications.

Using QR codes to improve location-based information

QR codes could be quite useful for tourist information signs, to give people quick access to more information about the local area, a map of local amenities, or directions to whatever they are looking for. Most phones that have the ability to recognise a QR code probably also have a GPS or some other form of positioning built in, which could help them find their location on the standard Google Maps, but doesn't necessarily help them get at other detailed information, perhaps provided by the likes of OpenStreetMap or provided by local information sites or the local government. Using these codes to point to targeted local information could be of great use to visitors (as long as there's a note to tell them how to make use of the QR code).

A QR code like the one at the top of the post could be useful for someone standing at a tourist information point in the Sea Terminal in Douglas, Isle of Man, as it takes them to a map centred on that point. The site it points to doesn't do much more than providing maps of the Isle of Man at the moment, and doesn't work too well on a mobile yet, but could (and hopefully will, before too long) provide much more information that could be of use to visitors. Similarly, the one to the right points to a map of Douglas on the OpenStreetMap site.

I haven't seen many QR codes in use yet, but hopefully they could become much more widespread in coming years. Could you see yourself making use of codes you found out on the street?