If you’ve ever lived in a city with any public transport, you’ve probably come across the Metro. Probably the biggest free newspaper in the world, it also has a habit of being a pioneer when it comes to combining newspapers with mobile technology. In Canada today it is launching a 2D barcode initiative in conjunction with ScanBuy – allowing users to connect directly to it’s new mobile website from codes in the paper.
How does the service work?
Mobile barcodes powered by ScanBuy have been placed in each section of the paper. Certain articles have the 2D barcodes embedded in them, with a caption informing readers that they can access more information about the story on-line if they snap the barcode with ScanLife:
The Metro is also dealing with the inevitable “what’s ScanLife?” question. As you can see in the example above, the caption for the barcode advises readers to head to page 3 to find out how the process works. On the top of page 3, there is a sparse but informative strip educating users on how to download and use ScanLife
Readers who snap the codes will be taken to the mobile edition of the Metro (m.metronews.ca), where they will find extra information that couldn’t fit in the physical paper.
On top of that, the whole project is being sponsored by Guinness for it’s 250th anniversary. So there’s also a promotion where scanning a 2D code gives you the chance to win a trip to Ireland.
What we think?
More than 1 million people read the Metro in Canada every day. Each on of them is going to be battered with ScanBuy branding today – smart move. And it’s not the first paper to use the system, as the National Post which has been using ScanLife for about 5 months now. I am very much in support of this barcode launch, and not just because it could potentially educate 1 million people as to the use of mobile barcodes. It’s also a genuinely useful service that is being implemented for free, which is exactly the kind of thing you need to attract public support.
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