During a Christmas party last year, Ledger Dispatch publisher Jack Mitchell connected the dots between augmented reality (AR) technology and printed newspapers. Another guest had contributed a bottle of 19 Crime” wine, which has labels depicting notorious criminals. With the ease of taking a mobile phone photo, that label and its featured criminal was “brought to life” on screen. Mitchell immediately recognized how AR might be applied to editorial and advertising content for his twice-weekly newspaper published in Jackson. Calif.

He began to research AR developers and found that many required readers to use third-party branded apps rather than a custom-branded app for the newspaper itself. Utah-based Strata AR was willing to create that app with Mitchell.

Partnering with Strata, Mitchell formed Interactive News, which will roll out apps to publishers around the country. They’ve begun to evangelize AR at industry conferences, while getting a growing number of newspaper publishers to put it to use practically.