JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - A South African newspaper Sunday became the first on the continent to offer readers the opportunity to access information via cellphones with Internet connectivity.

The Sunday Times is inviting readers to take a picture of a front-page bar-code with the camera on their mobile phones, which will then give them automatic access to a website of one of the Springbok rugby team's chief sponsors.

But while the technology is being initially used as a marketing tool, the publishers of The Sunday Times and its sister paper The Times say it has the potential to revolutionise the way readers can bring themselves up-to-date.

"This technology makes cellphones become an extension of print media," said Colin Daniels, in charge of new media development at the newspaper group.

The bar-code technology has been in widespread use in Japan where it was invented in the 1990s but, according to Daniels, it is the first time that it has been used in Africa.

"In Africa, this is major. They all have cellphones but they are not online yet. This could help in bridging the divide between print and new media as well as the technological and social divide."

Daniels's enthusiasm is echoed by Johncom Media, the publishers of The Sunday Times, which sees it as an opportunity for advertisers to touch base with consumers who have certified spending power.

"There are 30 million cellphone users in South Africa and 83 million in Africa," said Gisele Wertheim Aymes, innovation manager at Johncom Media.

"TimesCode enables marketers to tap the growing consumer power of mobile users to communicate in a simple yet highly impactful manner," she added.

In time, Daniels believes the technology will enable readers to access a range of services offered by the newspaper's online edition, including videos and blogs in a country where Internet journalism is still in its infancy.

The Sunday Times also boasts of setting up the first multi-media newsroom, comprised of editorial teams which will include one multi-media journalist, two editors and a photographer.

The Times' deputy editor Moses Mudzwiti said journalists were having to adapt to a vastly different set-up at work than they had been used to but he is convinced that is the future of the market.

"People are not used to it, they want to work as individuals," he said.

But even if the demand is limited so far, Mudzwiti predicted: "It's tomorrow's audience. We'll be there already."

Sydney Seshibedi, a sports photographer for the paper, said the journalists themselves were embracing the technological revolution.

"You need to change, otherwise you hold on to a certain way of doing things until you become irrelevant," he said.