Jaunted

Monmouth's newest idea for generating tourism buzz is to cover the entire town with Wikipedia-linking QR codes. The project, named "Monmouthpedia," required residents to post over 1,000 QR-coded signs and plaques around the area. The Wikipedia entries were also written by Monmouth citizens and describe the town's history and landmarks. There are options for English, Welsh, and other languages, and the entire thing took 6 months to create. The project's page on Wikipedia is here. Cute, no?

If we do have a criticism - and of course we do - it's that the project leaders are very proud of how "many of the QRpedia codes are printed on ceramic plaques that should last for decades." Bad idea. Picture any advertising platform that you can think of from 40 years ago (we imagine giant highway billboards but this trick works for whatever). Doesn't that look at best outdated, and more probably like a decaying urban blight? Today's futuristic style is tomorrow's not-old-enough-to-be-retro meh.

Why look, here's an article now about how augmented reality is going to kill QR codes. Why would you hold up your cell phone and scan just one link when you can not scan anything and have dozens of streams of geo-tagged information pop up on your phone, or tablet, or augmented reality glasses? The current incarnation of QR codes is going to be technologically and aesthetically obsolete very soon.

Still, neat.

[Photo: Monmouthshire County Council / Wiki Commons]