While this question may appear simple – and it is – many people don’t truly know that much about QR codes. The average person has certainly seen a QR code: those black and white, two-dimensional, square barcodes that are commonly placed on billboards and advertisements; but many don’t know the history and facts about this innovative technology.

QR (Quick Response) codes, are a matrix barcode that was invented in Japan in 1994. Created by Denso Wave (a subsidiary of Toyota), the first QR codes were used for the automotive industry. Since then, the technology has truly taken off, moving into virtually every industry. While the technology may be quite old, it has only been picked up by mobile marketing in recent years.

The technology was designed to be decoded at a very high speed. Because of this, marketers are able to create a code that can bring people to a website landing page in a very quick fashion. By simply scanning a QR code with a Smartphone, the user will be sent to the website for which the code was encoded for. Through this simple process, marketers have accomplished what could be dubbed, “a real-world hyperlink.”

This technology is sweeping the marketing industry. Only time will tell how far reaching QR codes will become.