In recent months, selling and advertising products and services through 2D barcodes, or Quick Response (QR codes) has been generating growing interest with carriers, advertisers, and media owners. News International in the UK and Google (NSDQ: GOOG) are both experimenting with them, while QVC has called it the “next killer app.” But it appears that students—the dominant demographic that mobile advertisers are scampering after—are much less impressed with them. The NYT has a detailed feature on a mobile barcode trial currently being conducted by mobile barcode firm Mobile Discovery (NSDQ: DISAB) at Case Western Reserve University, showing just how many barriers mobile barcodes will have to surmount if the technology is going to be of any use. 

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First off, there’s the issue of price. The cost varies carrier by carrier and depends on whether the student has a flat rate data plan or pays per download. Even though the service to access campus bus times was as low as $.02, because no one knew the actual price, many students feared the service would run up their phone bills. Second, Mobile Discovery appears to have made a mistake in the actual marketing of the service, using a controversial photo of a topless woman photographed with a barcode stamped on the tag of her jeans—which some female students found “dehumanizing,” and thereby ignored the service. Lastly, in some of the trial applications, students could receive more information on products and services. But they were perplexed: Pay to receive advertising? “Why would anyone actually pay for advertising?” asked one student, dismissing the entire service as “not practical.”