I usually hate QR codes. They’re ugly technology needlessly solving non-problems in a flawed attempt to be futuristic. Even worse, people plaster them on the dumbest things: bikinis, burqas, butts, etc. And now, setting a new low, they’ve painted a whole town with QR codes. There are literally over a 1000 QR codes scarring this entire town.
Yet… I don’t hate this QR codified town. Don’t get me wrong, QR codes are still awful and useless and silly, but if you want to do it, you might as well go all the way, right? The town, Monmouth in Wales (bless those crazy Brits), decided to embrace the challenge from a TEDx talk to “do a whole town” in QR codes. The whole project took six months of work, thousands of codes, 500 new Wikipedia articles in 25 different languages and an ignorance too ugly to pull off. This past weekend, Monmouth was finally able to declare itself the first Wikipedia town in the world. People who visit Monmouth can scan QR codes which are literally everywhere and learn more about what they’re seeing on Wikipedia. It’s like a next-gen amusement park, a full-fledged tourism experience.
Now that’s not saying I want every town to be decked in QR codes, I mean, can you imagine a QR code ruining Florence? But I’m not going to hate Monmouth for doing this. It’s gimmicky but well-intentioned! They even attempted to class up the codes with ceramic plaques and started to offer free Wi-Fi to the entire town so people can actually use these QR codes. There is good that can came out of awful. More power to you Monmouth. [Wikimedia]