• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, December 8, 2009

For several years, marketers in Japan have been placing barcodes on billboards and magazine pages and using them to blitz ads right to mobile phones.

The barcodes act as sort of a nerve center, storing a wealth of material a marketer can send right to a handset once a consumer scans it with a camera phone.

Want more info on a Disney vacation advertised in Us Weekly? Scan the page and a code to claim a free day pass could be sent or perhaps an audio recording of “It’s A Small World.”

The barcodes don’t look like the ones used in the supermarket â€" more like a crazy maze.