Business.
商业。
Mobile marketing.
移动营销。
Square deal.
方寸之间的营销。
After many false starts, QR codes are finally taking off.
在沉寂多年后，QR码最终开始成功。
EREAL boxes are, by and large, poor works of literature. Yet many people sit at breakfast reading them over and over again.
早餐麦片包装盒上的文字说明，一般情况下不会文采飞扬，但还是有很多人会在吃早餐时看上一遍又一遍。
Last year Kellogg's realised it could make its packets more entertaining-and guessed that people also had their phones to hand (anything beats talking to the family).
直到去年，麦片品牌凯乐格（Kellogg's）才意识到，因为多数人有这种习惯，所以他们产品的包装盒应该变得更有趣。同时，他们推测，人们在吃早餐时，往往不是边吃边与家人聊天，而是随手拿着自己的手机玩。
The cornflake-maker put 2D codes, better known as QR (for quick response) codes, on its Crunchy Nut boxes in America.
基于此，凯乐格在其在美国出售的Crunchy Nut麦片的包装盒上加上了二维码，或称QR码（QR即快速反应"Quick Response"之意）。
When scanned, these took cereal-munchers to a video of dawn in, say, Washington state.
人们扫描该产品包装盒上的QR码后，程序将自动播放据说是华盛顿州的黎明景象。
The idea was to push cereal as an all-day snack: "It's morning somewhere."
这个创意的口号是"处处是黎明，时时可享用"，旨在将以前仅作为早餐食用的麦片打造成全天可享用的小吃。
QR codes-squares of black-and-white patterns-have much to recommend them.
QR码是一组在正方形平面上分布的黑白相间的图案，优越性很高。
They store far more information than plain, old bar codes.
比起以前常见的条形码，QR码数据容量更大。
For example, they can fit in web addresses and logos.
例如，它可以记录网址或徽标。
And they are cheap. They have been popular in Japan for years, but elsewhere have for a while been touted as the next big thing. (In 2009 this newspaper said they were "on the point of breaking out".)
同时，QR码成本较低。近年来，QR码在日本被广泛应用，但在其他地方还有待推广。（2009年，本报已表明QR码的应用"将会爆炸性增长"。）
Over the past year, QR codes have quietly slipped into the marketing mainstream.
过去一年中，QR码悄然进入主流市场。
Three-quarters of American online retailers surveyed by Forrester, a research firm, use them. In April nearly 20% of smartphone users in America scanned one, up from 14% in May last year (see chart 1).
根据弗雷斯特研究公司（Forrester）对四分之三美国网络零售商的调查显示，今年四月，美国20%的智能手机用户用手机扫描了QR码，而去年五月这个比例为14%。
According to comScore, another research company, more than two-thirds of Americans and Europeans who scan QR codes do so in order to obtain information about a product.
根据另一家研究公司comScore的数据显示，在扫描QR码的美国人和欧洲人中，有三分之二是为了获取产品信息。
Japanese smartphone-owners, by contrast, are most likely to download a discount coupon or a special offer (see chart 2).
相比之下，日本手机用户扫描QR码，更多的是为了下载打折券或特价优惠。
Scanlife, a provider of QR code services, saw the number of unique users scanning codes through its system triple in the year to March.
二维码提供商Scanlife发现，截止今年三月，使用他们的系统扫描QR码用户增长了两倍之多。
One reason for the rise is the proliferation of smartphones with high-quality cameras and the corresponding decline in data charges.
他们表示，一个原因是持有高质量摄像头的智能手机的人数激增，同时，手机上网数据流量的价格降低。
It also took time for people to realise why advertisements contained mutant crosswords.
另一个原因就是经过一段时间的推广后，人们开始接受广告中出现的与纵横字谜有些相像的QR码。
And perhaps most important, marketers have only now worked out how best to use QR codes. Simply sending customers to the company website is not enough, says Melissa Parrish, an analyst at Forrester.
最重要的原因是，市场营销公司目前想出了充分利用QR码进行营销的办法。弗雷斯特研究公司分析师梅利莎·帕里什表示，现在仅仅向消费者提供本公司的网址是不够的。
In-store promotions are catching on. Coupons are always popular. Real-world treasure hunts have also been successful.
店内促销开始兴起，优惠券营销始终流行，类似于"真实寻宝"的营销也已获得成功。
For marketers, QR codes bridge the gap between offline and online worlds.
在市场营销人员看来，QR码可以连接网络与现实世界。
Customers who use them are, in effect, asking to be told more about the company. The success of a campaign is easy to measure by the number of scans.
实际上，通过扫描QR码，消费者希望更多地了解提供产品的公司；而通过QR码被扫描的次数，公司也可以很容易了解到其营销活动是否成功。
Expect to see a lot more of those funny little black-and-white patches.
未来，我们希望这些有趣的、黑白图案相间的QR码越来越多。