On my amiando ticket to a techcrunch event on Thursday that I printed from my PC I found there was a funny deranged chess board pattern in top right corner.

Sticking my camera barcode reader onto it I found I could “read” it and discover the underlying number.

Turns out its called a “QR Code” and is a type of mobile phone friendly bar code.

It works by scanning the code into your phone which converts into either a long number, a telephone number or web address.

To try it use the QR Code above:

1. See if your mobile phone supports QR Codes (Nokia N82, N93, N93i, N95, N95 8GB, E66, E71, E90 or 6220 Classic)

2. Go to applications / Barcode

3. Open your camera shutter

4. Point it at the QR code at the top of this post until it registers

5. Go to the URL and see the funny picture.

I tried this for the first time today and it worked fairly well.

I guess this would suit an offline media campaign where you want to direct response to a complex URL.

So say for example say I was advertising Mamma Mia on DVD I could include the following QR Code on the billboard. 

In theory it will let you Pre-order Mamma Mia on DVD for £12.98 and save £9.01.

Unfortunately I found that this particular QR code was too big for my phone to read. It’s also a bit fiddly to get working in real life. Let me know if you have more luck!

However it does save on typing and is faster than typing out a long URL on your mobile phone.

To create  your own QR Code go to http://qrcode.kaywa.com/