New '2D barcodes' puts info at the tip of your camera phone

— -- ScanLife and Jagtag want you to get in the habit of using your cellphone camera as a magic wand to extract digital content from inanimate objects.

The tech start-ups are in a race to get consumers to scan "2D barcodes" — matrix-like patterns that can hold much more data than the ubiquitous striped barcodes.

ScanLife and Jagtag supply technology that let you use your camera phone to do the scanning. They can deliver anything you might see or hear on a Web page to your handset, paid for by publishers or advertisers. The companies are taking different approaches to rolling out this technology in North America. Though it's early, each has gotten large clients to run promising trials.

Jagtag recently hooked up with Nike for an ad campaign built around barcodes on posters at a roving, extreme-sports competition. At every tour stop, fans could scan codes on posters and get Nike-sponsored athletes' videos, pictures and fan data.

Sears has placed ScanLife codes on store displays for power tools and TV sets that serve up Web links to online product reviews. And Canada's National Post, a 200,000-circulation, daily newspaper, has begun placing ScanLife codes on some print stories to enable readers to use their handsets to follow developing news coverage from the Post's website.

This year, 89% of new mobile phones shipped to the U.S. will have cameras, according to InfoTrends/CAP Ventures. Jagtag CEO Dudley Fitzpatrick envisions a world where 2D barcodes turn up on every imaginable surface. "It's a crazy idea that every object in the world can deliver on-demand digital video to any camera phone," says Fitzpatrick.

Snap and go

So, 2D barcodes give publishers and advertisers a way to leapfrog Google's popular search ads, which let advertisers post links alongside search terms related to their products. By contrast, barcodes push digital content to handsets at the moment a person is most interested in a certain topic. And there's no futzing with meandering Web searches, says Jonathan Bulkeley, CEO of Scanbuy, parent of ScanLife.