EricEwe.com

Google announced today that they are taking an aggressive move to make reviews more accessible to those brick and mortar stores. Google will allow U.S. consumers to read reviews about local stores on their cell phones when they point and scan the bar codes on those local stores.

Google labeled this initiative as “Favorite Places on Google”, and Google sent out 100,000 bar codes to 100,000 most popular local businesses based on searches. That initiative spanned across 9,000 towns across the 50 states.

Businesses can put the barcode up in their window; searchers can scan it with any camera- and app-enabled phone, then read the reviews and other info on the Place Page, and even get mobile coupons on the spot. The QR codes can be scanned by a variety of mobile phones, including Android-powered phones, the iPhone and BlackBerry devices, provided that the user downloads a barcode-scanning app. Google suggests its own Barcode Scanner app for Android, and the $1.99 QuickMark app (iTunes) for the iPhone, among others. 

Google mentioned that the barcode initiative will be expanded with more bar codes being sent out, but there was no mention of a timeline. If you are keen on getting onboard, you can claim your own barcode via this Google Favorite Places link.