I wanted to share something with you today that is really, really cool. It’s Mobile Tagging: the Interactive 2D Barcode Reader from Microsoft. What if your potential customers (both buyers and sellers) were walking around with a 2D barcode scanner in their pocket? Well, they are. And the next question is how can this impact your business?

Here’s a summary from Microsoft about the Microsoft Tag technology:

Microsoft Tag is a breakthrough technology that transforms everyday things in the real world into live links to online information and entertainment.

From your mobile phone, simply snap or scan a Tag image anywhere you see it – in editorials, advertisements, product packaging, signs and storefronts – and gain instant access to Websites, videos, reviews, schedules, contact information, social networks, discounts, promotions and more!

All you need to do is download the free Tag reader on your web enabled camera phone and when you see a Tag, snap or scan it to interact with the world around you in new ways!

For today’s demonstration about the new technology from Microsoft, I set out to see how hard/long this would take. I’m happy to report that it took less than 5 minutes to get setup and running with Microsoft Tag. That’s right, I had this technology implemented and running on my phone and my site in under 5 minutes.

In today’s example, I’ll be using my profile from a new site that we launched this week – Real Estate Agent Resume. The possibilities are endless for real estate applications.

Example of using 2D Barcode Reading on your social profiles

 
After working at CareerBuilder for all those years (8 actually), resumes are very near and dear to my heart. I always thought it would be cool to give real estate agents a way to share their ‘public’ real estate resume if you will…and those ideas all culminated into the launch of a new site which we rolled out this week: Real Estate Agent Resume.

I’ll be using my profile on REAR as the example of how the Microsoft Tagging platform can be implemented, but you can easily use any link, URL, landing page, etc. for combining Microsoft Tags and your online presence.

You might be wondering what the differences are between Microsoft Tag and QR Codes. That article goes over the advantages/disadvantages of each type. In a nutshell, Microsoft Tag will allow you to create a unique tag that can be tied directly to any page, site, URL, etc. (Think your home page, Twitter URL, Facebook Profile, you name it). You can then print that tag out, put it on a listing flyer, business card, heck, even your car window if you wanted.

Next, anyone with a mobile device using the Microsoft tag reader just snaps a picture of your tag and voila, they’re taken directly to your URL that was associated with that Tag.

Creating and using your first Microsoft Tag

 
Creating a new tag is very simple. Once you’re logged into your account, just click create Tag, then assign a URL to the tag you’re creating. After tag creation, you’ll see it in your list of available tags to manage like so:

tag1

From here, you can download, email, print and take actions on the tag. If you wanted to get the tag as a PDF or JPG to use inside a flyer or on a site, just download the tag. Here’s my tag I created for my profile page on Real Estate Agent Resume:

matthew_swanson

If you’ve downloaded the Microsoft Tag Reader to your phone – (Currently supported OS/Devices include: Android,Blackberry,iPhone,J2ME,Java 2 Micro Edition,PalmOS,Symbian S60,Symbian S60 1st Edit,Symbian S60 2nd Edit,Symbian S60 3rd Edit,Symbian S60 5th Edit,Windows Mobile,Windows Phone), take a picture of the tag above with your phone and you’ll be taken directly to my profile page on REAR.

There are so many uses for this application in the Real Estate space – I’d love to hear what you all think? Do you think Microsoft Tag will catch on? If so, how can you see yourself using it?

Cheers, Matthew

Useful links from this article:
Download the Microsoft Tag Reader to your phone
Tag and QR code differences
Microsoft Tag