• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, April 3, 2009

Canada's National Post newspaper began using two-dimensional (2D) bar codes this week to link newspaper articles to video and other content.

The link from paper to the Web is made possible through a free downloadable mobile app for smartphones from Scanbuy, N.Y. Directions on nationalpost.com point visitors to getscanlife.com. When the camera on the phone takes a picture of the bar code, the application reads the embedded information in the code and triggers a Web browser to open, which searches the Internet for the URL and serves up the page on the phone.

National Post hopes to offer advertisers a print ad service that gives consumers options to discover more information about products and services on the Web, according to Scanbuy CEO Jonathan Bulkeley. He noted that Canwest Publishing is the largest media company in Canada.

The deal adds to the hundreds of thousands of people that have already downloaded software from Scanbuy's Web site during the last six months. "We're supporting hundreds of scans per day in the United States," Bulkeley said, suggesting that people can go to the site, create a 2D bar code and download it for free. "The codes are put on t-shirts and other marketing items to promote brands."

In the past few months, Scanbuy has signed deals with telecom carriers such as Alltel, before being acquired by Verizon, and Sprint, which will soon begin to ship handsets with the 2D bar code readers preloaded on phones. Today, the software is available to download on 45 phones. Nike ran a soccer promotion in Mexico, as did Fanta in Denmark and Scandinavia using 2D codes, Bulkeley said.

Bulkeley said he has been considering getting a 2D bar code tattoo to have something readily available that can demonstrate the technology. "You could have one code and continually change the link behind it to pull down different content," he said. "It's like redirecting a URL."