NeoMedia Technologies, Inc (NEOM)

[krays]

I wonder if these guys have any money to license.

Golf Digest to Use Microsoft Tags
October 5, 2009, 9:00 AM ET.

By Russell Adams
Every month for almost 50 years, Golf Digest magazine has been trying to pull off one of the sport’s trickiest tasks: using static, two-dimensional images to help readers master a tortuous game.


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An article about Tiger Woods in Golf Digest will contain a Microsoft tag that takes readers to a video golf lesson on their smart phone.Can Microsoft help?

Readers will find out soon. About a dozen articles in the November issue hitting newsstands this week will be accompanied by a black-and-white barcode known as a Microsoft tag that, when photographed on a camera-equipped smart phone, loads onto the device and launches a Web browser with related video.

An article by Tiger Woods about making putts that slide from left to right offers readers a video lesson with Golf Digest senior editor Peter Morrice. A tag accompanying an interview with Michael Jordan takes readers to a video of the photo shoot with the former basketball star and avid golfer.

The Microsoft Tag technology will become a regular feature in the magazine, said executives from Golf Digest, which is published by Conde Nast. Golf Digest also is talking to marketers about sponsoring the video features in subsequent issues.

Advertisers have pioneered the crossover from print to Web. Ford Motor recently said it would embed tags in print ads for the new Taurus. And in August CBS partnered with a marketing firm to install mini media players inside the pages of Entertainment Weekly that played promos for some of the network’s fall shows.

Yet to date, few publications have used these technologies to enhance editorial content. Golf Digest publisher Thomas Bair and the magazine’s long-time editor, Jerry Tarde, said the idea made sense immediately when members of Conde Nast’s strategic sourcing department approached them two months ago.

For years, Golf Digest included a feature called “Pocket Tips,” a 16-page pamphlet readers could tear out of the magazine and stuff in their golf bag. Mr. Tarde said he saw the tags as the next generation of pocket tips. “That kind of clicked with me,” he said. “What we could do is bring motion.”

Tony Turner, Conde Nast’s executive director of procurement, said he thought of Golf Digest first because the technology lends itself well to publications with a service-oriented, instructional focus. Readers of Golf Digest, whose editorial mission is to show people how, what and where to play, are known to lay out the magazine on the ground during practice sessions on the driving range, Mr. Tarde said.

In that vein, Microsoft is working on similar projects with several other Conde Nast publications. The December issue of the parenting magazine Cookie will have a number of tags on its food pages that lead readers to recipes and shopping lists. Pilar Guzman, the magazine’s editor, said research shows moms “shop from the pages” of Cookie, making the publication a sensible home for the tags.

Self magazine is exploring using the technology for things like beauty tips and fitness instruction, while Lucky magazine also has similar plans.

Aaron Getz, product unit manager for Microsoft Tag, said there are a number of unexplored applications for the technology. He envisions, for example, a tag on the table-of-contents page that readers can scan to find out which articles have been most popular online since the publication of that issue.

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/10/05/golf-digest-to-use-microsoft-tags/