Readers of the Winter issue of Beer West magazine were able to interact with the articles and ads, and do things like: Play Beer Trivia, download recipes, view videos, design their own beer coasters to share on Flicker and much more. Beer West is one of the first U.S. magazines to embed digital watermarks into its images to create rich media experiences from the printed page. If you’re in the business of creating images (and enjoy a nice pint), you really should check it out. In fact, go to www.digimarc.com/beerme if you’d like us to send you a copy to try out on your own.

Now here's how to detect the digital watermarks and access the enhanced content...

You need to have an iPhone (3Gs or 4) or one of several supported Android phones. Go to iTunes or Android Market and download the Digimarc Discover app. There’s a little instructional animation to show you how it works. You can also test it out on the materials provided on Digimarc’s demo page. The magazine has been out a couple of weeks now and there have been hundreds of readers “clicking” through the pages to check out what’s “inside” the articles.

Static pages could soon be a thing of the past as we can now get the same multi-sensory experiences we love from the web delivered to our mobile phones from our favorite magazine. Think about the possibility of what you can enable from your images...