If you want to dig deeper into how eager some folks are to track your online comings and goings, check out this Wall Street Journal article that notes a few companies are using “digital fingerprinting” that can ID your movements by items as granular as the fonts you use on your computer or phone. Kinda creepy, really, and unless these companies start giving consumers the ability to control what is being tracked, the government will stick its beak in and make everyone miserable.

Specifically, they cite QR barcodes as an emerging way to drive traffic to your website.

Want to give it a shot? First, download a QR reader onto your smartphone, if you don’t already have one. (I use the AT&T Scanner on my iPhone.)

Then, try it out on this bar code:

• Amazon offers a “complete rewrite” of its site to take advantage of the iPad’s features and functionality. The app, Windowshop, sounds promising. I haven’t tried it yet but fully intend to.



• As a kayaker, I was pretty geeked to see RapidMedia partner with Outdoor Retailer to offer a product catalog for the iPad. I was considerably less geeked once I dug into it. I love being able to browse through all the cool paddling paraphernalia. It reminded me of paging through the Sears catalog as a child, identifying which toys I wanted for Christmas. Where the RapidMedia app falls down is in usability. Any time I want more detail on a product, I have to click out of the app (a common problem with apps) to a page that launches in Safari. Then I have to go back to the app after I’ve looked at the product. Very cumbersome, and to make matters worse, many of the links go only to the main page of the site, not directly to the page of the product I’m clicking to learn more about. I’d add a wish list feature to the app that allows you to add the products you’re interested in to a cart. Then when you’re done browsing, the cart can take you to the web for more info or help you keep track of the stuff you want under the tree (and email your list to your personal Santa).
• From another New York Times story, Aro Mobile is using a $20m investment from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen to try to make your smart phone smarter. Right now, it’s available only for Android, but it sounds very promising. From the story: “Say, for example, a message comes in outlining dinner plans for that evening. Aro Mobile highlights several pieces of information within the messages, like the name of the restaurant, other attendees and the time of the event. It then offers the user options like adding the event to the calendar, mapping directions to the place or contacting the other people on the invite list.”

Peter Kafka points to this Liberty Mutual iAd that includes a Twitter integration in his MediaMemo blog. Worth a look. The Twitter part comes at about the 45 second mark in the video.

While it’s great to see advertisers start to stretch their wings with iAds, I agree with Kafka’s assessment that they’re “so intent on showing off their digital bells and whistles that they forget about being compelling or entertaining.”

That’s definitely the case with the Liberty Mutual ad. It’s pretty boring. The part at the end where you can shake your phone and crash the car is mildly amusing. But I doubt I’d have gotten that far.

The moral: Good creative is about content. While the “cool” factor is nice, you have to be compelling and engaging to be effective.

Josh Pelz, social media manager for the Gansevoort Hotel Group, explains the value he sees in location-based services:

“The analytics that Foursquare gives you are awesome. I think they’ll probably charge for them at some point, but right now, they’re giving them away. With them, I can find out who’s checking in, the total checkins, the number that sent it to Twitter, the number that sent it to Facebook, the average times they’re coming. So, we can then use the data to find out our slow times and drive more business. We will use this information to improve the hotel for guests — no question.”

While you’re checking out the interviews, note the sponsorship Mashable is using for the Round Table Series. It’s a nice way to get the sponsor close the content without compromising the editorial integrity of the piece. Looks like a solid value for British Airways.

Check it out.