Picturecodes

Idea: Using images that are both human and machine readable, physical links (Picturecodes) could be created from the "real" world into its virtual counterpart without being limited by the aesthetics of urls and barcodes.

Inspiration: The cooperative connection DV project is trying to connect buyers of skirts in a more intimate way with their Indian producers. One way might be to have a Picturecode of the producer or the village, etc that the consumer could scan using a camera(phone) and get linked into a producer's website.

Offshoots:

1. Uniqueness: The tags could be unique so that from the producer standpoint when a consumer scans in a tag, this information could be used for registration (avoid counterfeiting, customer preferences, etc)
   
2. Feedback: Once scanned, a consumer could provide feedback about the individual item. Because the items are hand-made they might even be able to make a custom order for a new item at minimally more cost (thus providing the consumer with a high level of service, the producer with "producer loyalty" and both with a stronger producer-consumer connection). Also, this would provide the producers with feedback in order to respond to the skirt market.
   
3. Motivation: As certain producers gain reputations for exceptional quality skirts, producers will be motivated to raise their quality. In addition to providing producers with a higher level of self-determination, it will make the cooperative connection skirts more competitive in the marketplace (where they are charging a premium price)
4. Aesthetic display: In the consumer store the Picturetag could be used for all sorts of interesting purposes -- for example, highlighting a link on a big "earth screen" between the producers location and the consumer's (maybe the link remains after the purchase, but fades over time)
   

Problems: Machine vision is tricky. It would be hard to use an imperceptible watermark.. more likely is a distinctive border or something like that.