ScanLife gave a webinar entitled “Understanding Mobile Barcodes” hosted by Verizon on March 3, 2011.  It covered a variety of topics including:

• Barcode 101:  What, Why, and Where
• Activating a Barcode Campaign
• Barcode Strategies & Tactics
• Campaign Examples & Best Practices
• Developer Tools & Customization

We’re very happy to announce our new developer’s program today called ScanLife Innovation Exchange.   Over the years, we have received ideas from hundreds of businesses with unique and exciting ways to use this technology.  The Innovation Exchange will give everyone access to the most comprehensive set of tools to easily develop custom mobile barcode applications and services while leveraging the existing ScanLife core products.

Some of the key products include:

• SDKs to include a barcode scanner in your own Android or iPhone app (both a callable and a new embedded version)
• An Enterprise version of the ScanLife app which can be used instead of the SDK for those that don’t want to develop their own apps (available to Java, BlackBerry, Windows, and Symbian)
• Separate REST API’s that allow you to Create, Edit, and get Reports on multiple 2D code formats like QR, Datamatrix and EZcode
• Printer SDK to convert unique EZcodes into a TrueType font to print from any ink-jet printer

These tools can be used individually in certain cases, or they can be combined to build a completely custom mobile barcode system.  It’s really up to you to decide what is best for your project requirements.

With over 700% growth in the space, we believe this is the perfect time to make this available, and we have really just scratched the surface of how this technology can be used.

Thanks for your continued support, and keep the great ideas coming!!

We have reported before that half the scans from ScanLife come from regular UPC codes on product to get information like price comparisons, user reviews, MP3 downloads, and other details.  We take each UPC number and look it up through a number of data feeds supplied by Amazon, Google, Linkshare, and major retailers to give you the most relevant data from every scan.

Now, we have released a way for you to connect to that portal from other apps like Google Barcode Scanner or Red Laser.  This can also be used by developers that are using the ScanLife SDK or other SDK’s to build your barcode scanning apps!

Here’s how to set it up in the Barcode Scanner app on Android:

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Today, ScanLife announced that is has released a tool to make it really simple to launch the ScanLife universal barcode scanner from any 3rd party app.  This is a free tool that will first be available to the Android OS, and other leading operating systems will be offered soon.  [Update]: iPhone OS now supported.  Please go to developer.scanlife.com for details. We have received plenty of requests for this tool from marketers and publishers that are already planning to place 2D codes on material like magazines or packaging.  This gives your app users a way to scan those codes right from your own app.

How does it work?

1. A developer integrates the sdk into an app (go to developer.scanlife.com)
2. The user clicks on an icon or button to launch scanner
3. Generic ScanLife app is launched (or it is downloaded)
4. Codes are scanned as usual

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