Lucky for you, Upshot’s own QR code will help you find which bands are playing nearby during Interactive Week!

(When we told you that QR codes would be an interesting SXSWi subplot, we may have known a thing or two.)

If you’ll be in Austin this week, keep your eyes peeled for these stickers all around SXSWi. If you can’t make it, you can still scan the pic to the right to see who’s playing. (Need a QR reader? Here are some suggestions.)

And with that, we’re heading down to track the SXSWi madness in-person. Keep tabs on all the action by following Upshot on Twitter.

Oh, and you thought we forgot – stay up to the minute on all the SXSWi news by following us on Twitter.

So, about location. EVERYONE’S getting it now. Facebook’s adding it. Twitter turned it on, then off, and will probably turn it back on at their big SXSWi keynote address this week. Foursquare already had it, but now is getting plotted on Google Maps.

As they say, it’s all about location, location, location.

So, what does this all mean to marketers? What can we do with all of this location info? We’ll get the answer this week, I’m sure. (I know, what a tease!) But, we shouldn’t use this info to add to the ever-increasing clutter online. On a recent trip, I happened to check in at O’Hare on Foursquare. I was immediately contacted by a French company called Boarding, who told me that I was at the airport with six other Foursquare players, and sent me their Twitter handles. Uh, thanks a bunch. Lemme drop my bags and run over to greet them – I’m sure the plane will wait. Once again, we have to ask the obvious: where’s the value for the consumer? At least a similar service from Meet Gatsby is opt-in, and connects users based on common interests. And even if there’s not value, where’s the entertainment? In other words, where’s the quality content???

Hey, that’s the same complaint we made in our discussion about the buzz around QR Codes. Unfortunately, not everyone’s paying attention. Chevy’s making waves with a PR campaign based on QR Codes and the location-based service Gowalla. But, try scanning the QR code pictured in that article (or pictured above). Did you get a girl’s number? Chrissie? Yeah, me too. Maybe it’s the blogger driving the car. Maybe it’s a mistake. Maybe I’m not going try to find out. (You are? You creep.) Remember our lesson from the Best Buy code: the linked item needs to be immediately compelling! Unless there’s some great copy telling us what to do with that random number (which in this case, there isn’t), my interaction with the code ends right there. It’s a waste of a touchpoint, as well as an opportunity for an immersive sensory experience.

(And yes, YouTube did it first with that Wario ad a couple of years back. But since that spot’s not online anymore, and since Vimeo did something similar with Honda last year, we’re giving them all the credit. Score one for Foreverism!)

Score one, too, for Immersive Sensory Experiences. Remember, consumers are growing increasingly accustomed to this level of sensory indulgence. If you’re going to break through the clutter, you’re going to need to break through some boundaries (in this video’s case, literally) to capture their attention.

We’ve already mentioned that location is the watchword at this year’s SXSWi, but we’d advise you to keep your eyes out for news on QR codes as well. Longtime readers know that we’ve been tracking these two-dimensional barcodes for years, but the codes had never quite passed the tipping point because consumers had to download a QR reader before using them. Fortunately, most new handsets are coming pre-loaded with QR readers, and for those that aren’t, there are a number of brands that are helping to familiarize American consumers with the technology (including that tiny little venture named Google).

And, with SXSW announcing that every attendee’s badge will include a QR code (and the festival’s site sharing a slew of QR readers), we think the time has finally come for QR codes to have their day. Of course, that’s why Upshot’s going to be blanketing SXSWi with our own QR code to help attendees track the 6th Street music shows during the Interactive festival.  See the above video for a demo, and stay tuned for more info later this week.

While we’re clearly some savvy marketers ’round here, there’s always going to be a handful of marketers who are seduced by the “shiny-ness” of an unfamiliar technology, and will apply it in a gimmicky manner. For instance, select Best Buy stores across the country have featured QR codes in their store windows, which is admittedly a great way to deliver interesting content in an immediate way to passing consumers. Unfortunately, snapping the code takes the consumer to… Best Buy’s website. Guys, they’re already standing in front of the store! What kind of value are you delivering?

Compare that to the N Building in Japan, which complemented their window-based QR code with a little augmented reality. Or, the guerilla campaign for District 9, where decals and posters (such as this one) were slapped all over urban areas. That code linked users to a video clip that told the backstory of the movie. Likewise, the band Passion Pit embedded a free mp3 in bar coasters in UK pubs, as well as discounts for purchasing the album.

The common thread in these examples is that they all provided unique, highly-desirable content! It’s the same ol’ rule we’ve been following for years; if you’re not engaging consumers, you’re just creating clutter. Nobody wants to see that! They want to see QR codes like these:

• Add customized messages to packaging, or in this case, bottles. Anyone giving a gift fr0m 94 Wines can attach a QR code to the bottle with a text, photo, or video greeting.
• Provide something a little harder-hitting, like the code that the Detroit Red Wings added to their game programs. The code brings users to a video featuring the body-checking skills of Niklas Kronwall.
• Hide clues for a scavenger hunt amidst QR codes placed in various locations.

We could keep going, but we’ll continue to follow-up with examples down the road. For now, we’ll leave you with a simple place to start: the three cardinal rules for creating a consumer-friendly QR code.

UPDATE: Well, this is a nice bridge between our last couple of posts. Fourwalla is encouraging venues near SXSW to create QR codes that Foursquare and Gowalla users can scan in order to check-in. Fourwalla claims that the codes will help verify check-ins, although I’m not sure there’s too many venues that are worried about that kind of publicity.

For starters, let’s check-in with Foursquare, who we covered in our recent Potty Posting. Looks like they’ve done what many people do when they’ve achieved newfound celebrity: they’ve headed to Vegas. As shown in the picture above, Foursquare partnered with the city’s Miracle Mile Shops to broadcast Foursquare check-ins, tips, and mayorships on a number of digital billboards around town. You can bet that something similar will be heading to Times Square soon.

Of course, Foursquare’s other big news means that what happened in Vegas might not stay in Vegas. The site is overhauling its previously spartan History section, and now complements where you checked-in with who else checked in with you. Don’t worry – this only goes for people who you’ve friended on Foursquare, so that seedy individual accompanying you to the craps table is still your private little secret. For now. Additionally, your Foursqaure History section can now be organized by categories, so you can separate your shopping check-ins from your bar visits and who-knows-what-else. This inches the service closer to sites like Yelp, since you’ll presumably be able to search by these categories in the near future. Stay tuned.

Gowalla also went under the needle in order to look sharp for SXSW, but another LBS is looking to put on a few pounds. Foodspotting is a niche-site within the LBS niche (clearly, a Niche Network), allowing diners to take pictures of food, review the meal, and tag the restaurant via geolocation. For SXSW, Foodspotting will be offering local guides and scavenger hunts, since even techies love to chow down on some good ol’ Texas BBQ.

Undoubtedly, we’ll have more to share on LBS this week. Be sure to follow us on Twitter (and tell a friend!) to get up-to-the-minute updates!

Speaking of SXSW Interactive, we’re very intrigued to see how folks there will be adjusting to the reality of our After the App trend. Don’t get us wrong; we expect to hear about a ton of hot new smartphone apps, and expect to be bowled over by many. Still, we’ll no doubt see a number of companies examining other ways to activate their brands via the mobile web (perhaps through location based services?) as app clutter continues to grow.

For instance, Continental Airlines recently revealed that their basic mobile web ads delivered significantly more click throughs (and more importantly, sold 80% more airline tickets) than the company’s branded app. Considering that mobile web ads, to paraphrase Steve Jobs, still “suck,” that’s some pretty dire news for your average smartphone app. Moreover, the fact that many brands need to spend in the ballpark of $50,000 on mobile ads to promote their mobile apps turns the whole value equation on its head. If you need to work that hard for your app to be seen, how essential can it really be to the consumer?

Then again, this news comes as little surprise to anyone who’s been tracking our After the App trend. With the average iPhone owner using only 5-10 apps on a regular basis, we’d expect little usage of apps that have such limited applications. Sure, an exceptionally frequent flyer might benefit greatly from the Continental app, but the rest of us would only use this a handful of times per year (and that’s assuming you’re flying the same airline every time). So, while that app isn’t a waste of effort from the brand’s standpoint, it also can’t be expected to serve as the brand’s sole strategy for mobile marketing.

In fact, the Times article linked above has a very telling bit of information surrounding the 5-10 apps stat. When asked why they weren’t downloading more apps, a number of iPhone owners mentioned that they didn’t have time to use them. Well, there’s the first question your brand needs to be asking itself before rolling out a smartphone app: how do we make this worth our consumer’s time? Are you providing an enormous convenience? Gripping entertainment? Something the consumer really needs in the palm of their hand? If not, you simply aren’t going to break into that coveted 5-10, and it’s time to start thinking of other ways to break through in the mobile channel.

This article from CNN would be a good place to start. It’s a profile of Zynga, the company behind status-update-hijacking games like Farmville and Mafia Wars. The interactive chart at the top of the page shows the demographic breakdown for their top 5 titles, as well as the average dayparts and time committments. Supporting our Mother’s Little Helper thesis, FarmVille, Café World, Fishville are all dominated by women, although Mafia Wars unsurprisingly skews more towards dudes.

The article also examines the secrets to Zynga’s success. Like all casual games, these Facebook-based games are extremely simple, and can be played in small spurts. But, these titles really took off becuase many of the tasks required teamwork from other people in your network (such as coming together to raise a barn in Farmville). This built-in social element adds an entertaining layer to the games, but also ensures that the games (or, at least their updates) spread like wildfire through Facebook. (Even if you don’t play these games, you inevitably know a lot about them just from scanning your Facebook news feed.) Of course, not everyone’s so impressed with their success.

While the advertising opportunities in these games still appear to be relatively traditional, an enterprising marketer might be able to tap these social elements to make their ads really stand out. Is there an opportunity for Groupon-like ads in these games, where players band together to get deals in the same way they band together to create virtual mafias? We’d bet the farm on it.

A quick programming note: We will be covering the upcoming SXSW Interactive Festival via Upshot’s Twitter profile. Please follow @upshot_agency to get up-to-the-minute updates from Austin!

A couple lingering points from our Here and Now (with Foursquare) Potty Posting, before we get back to your regularly scheduled awesomeness.

One caveat that we didn’t get to in the posting: at the moment, location-based services are occasionally susceptible to people gaming the system. One guy found a loophole that allowed him to check-in at the North Pole from the comfort of a cafe in Burbank, and proceeded to start checking in all over the world. While this guy’s obviously quite busy, his efforts do highlight an important point. If he wants to write a program to win the mayorship of a local bar in order to get a free beer, no big deal. But, if a marketer was giving away a large cash prize to whomever earned a particular mayorship, the hacker floodgates would come flying open. Until that loophole is closed, marketers should avoid doing big giveaways through these services.

And by “these services,” of course, we mean all the location-based social networks. While our Posting focused primarily on Foursquare, there are a number of other successful services in this space, including Google’s Latitude and Gowalla (which just landed the coveted coverage of SXSW). But, besides Foursquare, Loopt seems to be capturing the most headlines as of late. They’ve got their own stable of partnerships, such as their arrangement with Tasting Table to provide local food recommendations. Loopt has also experimented with charity tie-ins; a recent campaign raised money for Haiti for every visit to Chipotle, Panera, or Whole Foods. Looking ahead, Loopt is also testing location-based ads, which will push content to users based on their vicinity. Granted, we’ve heard rumblings about this kind of advertising via text messaging or bluetooth for years, with the same verdict every time: it’s just too intrusive. It’s hard to believe that Loopt’s version is any different, but we’ll keep an eye on the situation nonetheless.

Of course, if keeping all these services straight is stressing you out, you could always just create your own…

Oh, and they did get the TV commercial shown to the right, too. But c’mon, a Potty Posting! As a follow-up to our coverage of Foursquare and other location-based social networks, we’ve compiled a whole slew of marketing applications below. (We’ll touch on some competing services, as well as a big watchout, in our next post.)

For starters, let’s talk about that Bravo spot. It calls attention to Bravo’s Foursquare-based iPhone app, which highlights over 500 venues that are featured on their educational programs like “The Real Housewives” and “Kell on Earth.” Want to know where that muppet from “The Millionaire Matchmaker” likes to eat? Nah, me neither. I’d rather seek out Zagat’s “Foodie” badge, which can be earned by checking into Zagat-rated restaurants in New York, San Francisco, Chicago and other major cities.

Foursquare is also an absolute duh for event marketing. The connection is so obvious that a whole bunch of marketers have already figured it out:

• For those attending the Winter Olympics, The New York Times used Foursquare to offer recommendations on restaurants, attractions, shopping and nightlife.
• Lucky Magazine offered a similar option to attendees of the New York Fashion Week, pointing Foursquare users in the right direction for drinks, WiFi, coffee, and more. (A related Lucky badge highlights the almost 700 stores that make up Lucky’s nationwide “Shopping Directory,” and the magazine intends to create the shopping equivalent of pub crawls in the near future.)
• To promote the release of the movie Valentine’s Day, the studio offered a badge that collected 50 “Romantic Tips” around the cities that the movie takes place in: New York, San Francisco, Chicago, LA, and Boston.
• A venue in SF is offering anyone who checks into the venue on Foursquare $2 off their ticket. Why? Well, if you saw 15 of your friends were checking into the same venue, wouldn’t you be curious?
• Scoping out what developers are already doing with the Foursquare API hints at the potential for these kinds of services. Since Foursquare’s public (or can be) and tied into sites like Twitter (or can be), a third party can target everyone at a given location and message to them at once.

Need more examples?

• Current or prospective Harvard students can get a collection of campus tips through the university’s new Foursquare partnership.
• We mentioned one of the Explore Chicago badges in the Potty Posting, but they also have separate collections for blues joints and Chicago style hot dogs. Presumably, there’s more to come (like the best places to work in Chicago, for instance.)
• The local deal-finding service Yipit has also teamed with Foursquare. Whenever you check in to a business, Yipit automatically records that in their database, and they’ll notify you the next time that venue is having a deal.

Still have questions? Shoot us a note, or start sifting through the customer support community for Foursquare.

Spoiler alert: there are.

Click here for the full-color PDF, and please feel free to share with clients!

Or, if you’d prefer the text only version, continue reading below.

We know, we know. You just congratulated yourself after successfully introducing your clients to Twitter, but as you headed for the door, they causally asked, “By the way, what’s this Foursquare thing?” Yup, we’ve got a new tech du jour. With over a million check-ins per week, and everyone from Bravo to Harvard jumping on board, you’d better learn how to play nice with Foursquare.

Let’s say you found yourself at, oh, I don’t know, the Holiday Inn’s Cityscape bar. If you “checked in” using the Foursquare mobile app, your friends would be updated with your current location and could choose to join (or avoid?) you. You could also feed your check-in to Facebook and Twitter, which is far easier than climbing on the rooftop and screaming, “Hey! Everyone! Look at me!”

Oh, by the way, you just started playing a game. For every venue, Foursquare crowns the most frequent visitor as “Mayor” (we’ll let you make your own assumption about who’s “running” Cityscape). If the bragging rights aren’t enough motivation, a number of establishments have started offering discounts (or free drinks) to whoever “earns” their Foursquare mayorship. Got your attention now, didn’t we? Wait, where are you going? Get back here!

Oh, by the way, you’re also living inside a user-generated recommendation engine. For each check-in, Foursquare encourages you to offer tips, which are essentially brief reviews or recommended things to do at a given location (such as “bankrupt the bar via their frequent wine drinker card”). Foursquare offers links to Yelp reviews as well, in case you want more in-depth information.

Oh, by the way, you’re also competing against the entire Foursquare community. Each check-in generates points (with bonuses for trying new places, traveling longer distances, etc.), and Foursquare maintains a weekly leaderboard, despite Foursquare’s acknowledgment that they don’t know what they’re doing with it just yet. (However, they recently got Pepsi to contribute to CampInteractive for every point added during a specified week.) Plus, you can acquire “badges” based on different activities; for instance, check in to three bars with photobooths and you’ll get the “Photogenic” badge. (More on these in a second.)

But before we go any further, let’s address the two questions that are driving you crazy right now. First, isn’t this an insane violation of privacy? Insane, maybe, but not violating. The service doesn’t “track” your whereabouts; you choose to check-in (or not) at any given location. (As always, the best way to learn about – and stop fearing – these services is to sign up and experience them for yourself.) Second, is Foursquare more likely to be the next Twitter or the next Second Life? Actually, the prospects look pretty good. Someone is going to crack the code on real-time location, whether it’s Foursquare or Loopt, or Google Latitude, or Gowalla, or a site that’s bound to pop up tomorrow. (Foursquare just happens to have a head start.) Sure, these services are a bit invasive and self-absorbed, but they’re also easy to use, addictive, and admittedly kinda fun. Better yet, they use technology to get people off of the couch and interacting in real life, even if these folks are staring at their phones half the time. Still, this isn’t for everyone, and never will be. After all, it took your mom this long to get on Facebook, and that site doesn’t even reveal your location… yet.

Now, the million-dollar question: should marketers play ball with Foursquare? Actually, it’s not much of a question, ‘cause it’s already happening. We’ve got a boatload of examples on The Awesome Blog, but essentially, it’s all about the badges. For instance, Explore Chicago created a number of badges to encourage people to check out the city; their On Location badge lets you trace the trajectories of famous Chicago-based movies like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, High Fidelity, and Blago Goes to Jail. (Wait, scratch that last one.) What’s the benefit of earning a Foursquare badge? About the same as earning one in Cub Scouts: impressing your circle of fellow dorks. But, we’ve previously noted that peer recognition can be an effective form of currency, so that’s not something to trivialize. For instance, if Corona created a badge highlighting the five most laid-back bars in a given city, consumers would probably be proud to display that to their friends. (Say, that’s a good idea!) Such badges work two-fold; on the one hand, it’s essentially free schwag for the consumer’s participation in a fun game. Plus, Corona looks like a Hometown Hero by highlighting some lesser-known spots in a consumer’s neighborhood.

Admittedly, though, the best is yet to come. We’ve corralled a number of emerging applications of these technologies on The Awesome Blog, as well as some hints about what the future holds. For now, at least you can say that you’re completely caught up on the latest in every social networking platf– wait, what the hell is Google Buzz?

Check out who’s checking in at theawesomeblog.net.