In her post "QR in the New Year?" Shelly Bernstein provides a brief summary of the recent trial of QR codes at the Brooklyn Museum.

She begins the article by saying "If I asked the Magic 8-Ball if we’d continue with QR in the New Year, I think the response might be anything from “outlook not so good” to “don’t count on it” or, possibly, “cannot predict now”" and concludes with "So, I think what we end up with is simply a project that isn’t an overwhelming success or failure.  Certainly, QR on advertising didn’t do so well for us.  QR use in the building is overall very low, with visitors seeming to favor application-like uses for it.  However, compared to pre-QR code use, the use of those applications dropped significantly.  This suggests that QR might be appropriate for special projects, but that we probably need to stay away from it as a baseline visitor amenity if we are to be at all inclusive about how we serve content."

I am unsure whether we are looking at this the right way. At this point is this something that we can evaluate simply in terms of success or failure? I believe that we are seeing is possibly analogous to what we saw when the web went mainstream. When first we started seeing urls appearing on stuff - adverts particularly - I remember having a conversation that went something along the lines of "yeah, but no one is ever going to use them, AND you need an internet connection!" Now, access to the internet is a fundamental human right, and if we can't follow our favourite brands on Twitter or like them on Facebook we feel somehow cheated.

As with with early days of the net, if the QR code is the only method of getting your information out there, or your "experience" is somehow devalued if, for what ever reason, you are unable or unwilling to access the information provided, then, and only then, is there a problem.

As it is, QR codes provide, at low cost, an easy mechanism for "distributing" additional information should visitors want it. As a visitor, accessing this information might enhance my experience, but not taking advantage of it will not detract from my visit. 

It is, I think, too early to draw any meaningful conclusions - there are too many unknowns and other factors to be taken into consideration. I suspect we should just muddle along, refining what we do as we go - and and then panic (in about two years) when NFC really arrives.