Verizon Wireless customers can get one-click access to product information, including application downloads and consumer reviews, using ScanLife, a free application downloadable on more than 30 devices.

The new technology from Scanbuy Inc. lets customers access information by using their camera phones to take pictures or scan bar codes on certain products. The application reads two-dimensional bar codes commonly found in magazines and outdoor advertising, as well as UPC codes found on product packaging.

?ScanLife is a great app that gives customers quick and easy access to product information whenever they have their phones,? said Debra Lewis, spokeswoman for Verizon Wireless, Basking Ridge, NJ. ?Bar codes are increasingly being used in marketing and we're hopeful this will be another way that customers can get the products and services they need.?

Scanbuy is a provider of mobile bar code services that use the camera phone as the link between the physical world and the digital world.

The ScanLife platform consists of a multi-bar-code-reader application and interoperable Code Management Platform.

Cool in your code
Verizon Wireless customers can use ScanLife to:

? View product details and user reviews while shopping in a store

? Request coupon offers from magazines and other traditional forms of marketing

? Launch audio tours on their phones from kiosks in major cities such as San Francisco

? Connect business cards to contact information or social networking profiles.

ScanLife will read all major two-dimensional code formats, including Datamatrix, EZcode and QR codes.

Additionally, many Verizon Wireless devices with an auto-focus camera will also be able to read common one-dimensional bar codes?UPC, ISBN and EAN?which are found on most product packaging.

These bar codes will give consumers one-click access to specific product information, including price comparisons, product specifications and consumer reviews, making the consumer shopping experience interactive.

Any individual or business can create its own two-dimensional codes or register existing one-dimensional codes on the ScanLife Code Management Platform at http://www.scanlife.com.

Business customers will pay a flat fee based on their specific use of the system, while personal accounts are free of charge and can be used to connect to social networking profiles or contact information.

Thousands of national and local businesses have created accounts on the ScanLife platform to interact with consumers through their mobile devices.

ScanLife is available now to Verizon Wireless customers as a free download by visiting http://www.getscanlife.com on their Verizon Wireless device's browsers.

?We have always believed that this technology can only succeed if millions of people have the ability to easily scan bar codes from their devices,? said Jonathan Bulkeley, CEO of Scanbuy, New York. ?This partnership with the largest U.S. carrier will help create the awareness and the reach needed to take mobile bar codes mainstream.

?This is critical for our customers like Heineken or Esquire who want to launch mobile bar code campaigns and hit an extremely wide audience,? he said.

For now, ScanLife has preferred locations in some of the key download portals such as Android Market.

?Through these efforts, we are seeing tens of thousands of downloads and our scans are growing significantly every month,? Mr. Bulkeley said. ?We cannot say when Verizon will go to preloads, but other carriers like Sprint have begun to preload the app on new phones, and it is now a standard feature.?

Droid Does
Verizon is featuring ScanLife as part of its ?Droid Does? campaign, using 2D bar codes to link Android users to applications in Android Market.

Verizon?s Motorola Droid Web portal carries the tagline ?Activate: über-intelligent apps.?

Users that click through are shown a menu of applications and a 2D bar code.

Each application has its own unique 2D bar code. Droid users are instructed to ?use Google Goggles or text SCAN to 43588 for code reader.?

?Verizon is using 2D codes throughout its ?Droid Does? campaign, which is touting a world of applications available on Android Market,? Mr. Bulkeley said. ?The codes are being placed across different media including magazine ads, in-store displays, direct mail, the Web and even iPad ads.

?The codes link to Android apps for some and a branded mobile site for those without an Android phone,? he said. ?The campaign is already seeing thousands of scans every day.?

New advertising options for Verizon Developer Community
In other news, Verizon Wireless, realizing the growing opportunity to boost revenues via in-application advertising, is enabling developers to choose from multiple platforms if they want to incorporate advertising into their applications. 

The Advertising Development Center, which will be available through the Verizon Developer Community (VDC) portal, will provide developers a portfolio of options, information, services and tools to help them make decisions about mobile advertising.

Custom software development kits (SDKs) and other tools will be available to developers as they create applications for Verizon Wireless? mobile storefront, V Cast Apps. 

Initially, two platforms will be available in the VDC to address the needs of a wide variety of developers and applications

Microsoft is the preferred provider of mobile advertising and search for Verizon Wireless? owned-and-operated services and will partner with Verizon Wireless to foster success in the marketplace for its developer community.

The SDK for Bing, Microsoft?s decision engine, will be made available and provide developers the tools and resources to embed a customizable search engine into Web sites and applications.

AdMarvel is a mobile advertising service provider that enables publishers to easily source, track and optimize advertising from virtually any ad network or direct sourced ad inventory.

Developers who choose this vendor will be able to access reporting and analytics and gain control over advertising inventory and campaign management through an online dashboard.

In addition, AdMarvel will provide developers with a free analytics SDK to gauge application performance and help developers optimize their application for usage and monetization.

?The tools we announced [yesterday]?through our work with Microsoft and AdMarvel?give developers more options when they build and market their apps,? Ms. Lewis said.

?[Yesterday's] announcement builds on the work of the Verizon Developer Community and we think it adds to the value of being part of the Verizon Developer Community,? she said.