Up until now, one of the many advantages that online advertising had over paper publications is that it can use hyperlinks, whereas paper publications are restricted to plain text links, so to speak.
However, this may soon change. With the introduction of Microsoft Tag, paper publications can now host a direct visual link to the internet and most smartphones will be able to read them. During the beta, creating a Tag is free, as is the piece of software you need to read them.
This is a big step forward, as thanks to the immediate and accessible nature of the internet, relying on your target audience to actually physically type in a link is a clear limitation. Though this is not the first attempt to introduce technology of this nature, the advantage that Tag has over its predecessors such as CueCat is that many people already possess the means to read it. Tag is similar in principal to a barcode but a specially designed scanner is not necessary. To open a link from a tag, you simply have download a bit of software and then snap the tag with your smartphone.
Tags: microsoft tag