Hey, guys.
I'm Sharon (Bacon?) for CNET with a fun way to customize holiday gift tags using QR Code.
What if the next time you gave someone a gift, instead of using a regular boring gift tag, you could actually attach a video note instead.
Well, you can create a custom tag that uses a QR Code to do just that.
We've all seen these squiggly square designs popping up on everything lately and if you scan them with your smartphone, the code could do lots of things including open a URL.
So what we're going to do is attach a YouTube video to a custom QR Code that you can print on a gift tag or anything else for that matter.
To start off, record the video you wanna attach to the gift.
You can do this on your webcam, cellphone or digital camera like I did here.
Make it short about 30 seconds or less since you'll be uploading those to YouTube.
Once you've captured the video and transferred it to your desktop, head to YouTube and click upload.
You'll need an account but if you already have 1 with Gmail, just use that.
Now find your video file and while it uploads, fill out all the fields below.
Give it a good title, a description and make sure to select unlisted so only the gift recipient sees the video.
When it's done uploading and processing, scroll down here to select a thumbnail for the video preview.
Then copy the URL for your video.
Now it's time to create a QR Code that links directly to your video message.
Head to this URL which is a safe website for customizing QR Code.
Open the drop down menu, select URL and paste the link you copied into the box.
Then choose a size you want the bar code to be and click generate to see your customized QR Code.
You can test the QR Code right on your screen before you do anything else.
You'll need an app like QR Reader for the iPhone or bar code scanner for Android.
Launch the app, scan the QR Code on your screen and you'll know it works when you see your video come up on your phone.
Now you can print out your new code, stick it to your gift and wait for the awesome reaction when your friends see your video message.
This is especially great if you'r mailing the gift to a person you don't see often.
Just make sure to have a smartphone and know how to use QR code.
You might want to attach a note with a tip explaining how to scan it just in case.
If you have any funny videos for QR Code, let me know on Twitter or on my Facebook page.
For CNET, I'm Sharon (Bacon?).
