Media Experts CEO Mark Sherman’s new venture, Montreal-based Cmore Media, is hoping to bridge the gap between print and the web.

Starting with today’s launch of a pilot project with the Montreal Gazette – and on April 13 with the Calgary Herald – newspaper readers who want further information about an article they’ve read or ad they’ve seen will be able to get it with the punch of a mobile shortcode.

Selected articles and advertisements in the papers will be tagged with a Cmore icon and a shortcode to which the reader can send a text message and receive a link to more expansive content via email. The goal, Ian MacLean, Cmore VP/GM, tells MiC, is to build a bridge between print and online.

‘What we’re going to be doing during this deployment is to allow consumers to connect from the analog content in the paper to the digital content online,’ he says.

The obvious benefit to advertisers is measurability, Sherman explains.

‘Right now most of the information that advertisers use to make an investment decision is stale audience research data, which pertains to the readership of a publication and not the performance of an ad. Ad-based metrics represent a giant leap forward for advertisers.’

Sherman says Cmore will allow advertisers to be able to gauge the performance of individual publications and media quite quickly, but allows that he can’t predict how soon the tech will take off.

‘It will take some time to establish the behaviour; the use of shortcodes isn’t as widely understood as the use of text messaging,’ he says.

The service is free to consumers. Cmore declined to name advertisers currently on board.