The mobile barcode space is moving very quickly, and it’s exciting to see marketers and users embrace the technology.  Ads are popping up right and left with QR codes, many of them powered by ScanLife.

But, with growth comes growing pains which we try to help our users  avoid.  One feature our system offers is the ability to change the code content whenever you want.  So if you have to print the code before your website is ready, you just log in, edit and everything is updated.  This also comes in handy if you happened to make a mistake on the content you entered.

If you use other “non managed” or “direct” code generators, you cannot change what is embedded in that code.  So you have to be very sure it’s right before you save it, and before you print it.

Unfortunately, one marketer discovered this issue the hard way.  We don’t want to pick on anyone, but it’s just a good example of what can go wrong.  The below Onstar ad ran on the back of Entertainment Weekly.  They used a direct code which has one major issue – it’s missing a backslash after the http header.  Therefore, many code reading apps (including ScanLife) do not recognize this as an actual URL so the website cannot even be launched!

Code from Onstar Ad

This technology is really very simple, but things can go wrong.  We hope that examples like this will quickly become distant memories, as everyone becomes experts!

As we move into a new year, we wanted to reflect on a pretty amazing 2010, so we just released a year-end Mobile Barcode Trend Report . When we launched ScanLife in Beta in 2008, it was a time when “Droid” was just something from a sci-fi movie and camera phones were meant for throwaway snapshots.  To say things have changed is an understatement.

In 2010, ScanLife saw over 1600% growth in mobile barcode traffic.  That doubled in the fourth quarter alone!  A year ago, ScanLife couldn’t even read UPC codes, and now it is more than half our traffic offering content ranging from local prices to coupons to nutritional information.

Some other highlights from the report:

• The largest scan days of the year for us were the day after Thanksgiving (“Black Friday”) and Christmas Day (as people received gifts, many being new Smartphones)
• The top most used features for people scanning UPC codes are Coupons, Prices, and Nutritional Info.  This reflects previous learning that Food and Personal Care are the most scanned categories.
• There was a 13% increase in female to male traffic, and a 25% increase in the 25-54 age group.  This is likely indicative of how the technology is evolving, and going more mainstream.

We truly appreciate the support of all our users and customers, and can’t wait to make 2011 the year mobile barcodes go completely mainstream.

You can download the full report here.

Here are some of our most recent campaign examples for the month of December.  2D codes were used by a variety of different industry categories including:

• Film: Movie Poster for “I Am Number Four” – Code linked to entry of an exclusive sweepstakes.
• Retail: Target Holiday Catalog – Code linked to videos like a “How-To TV Buying Guide”.
• Sports: NHL – Code linked to YouTube video promoting the Winter Classic in Pittsburgh.
• Non-Profit: City Harvest – Code linked to a menu of options on how to help feed the homeless

Here’s one example, and you can check out the rest from our Flickr page.

Stay tuned for more examples, and follow us on Twitter for new examples as they launch!