Spaced-OoooO-Out ::

We’re moving to a world of TOIDs…. well not, the OS implementation of TOIDs, but the idea that “objects” in the world can be, and are, interesting…. these objects are somewhere so, heck, let’s geotag them. That’s the idea behind Tale of Things. But it has a neat twist: why not give it a unique code. You could call it a TOID if you want, but they use QRCodes which are basically barcodes but can encode more data. They are 2D (rather than1D barcodes) and are increasingly being used to present information to people. Why is this useful? Well, whip your camera out, take a picture and use an app to decode it. If it contains a URL (which it does in the case of Tale of Things), your smartphone can take you straight to the site to view information (and also tell you where you are!). Digital Urban have a nice summary which is worth reading.

Is it another bit of pointless fluff? Probably. Will that stop people using another social network? No. Can it be genuinely useful? Quite possibly!