The mobile revolution has successfully infiltrated traditional print media.

On Friday, USA Today announced that it is working with AT&T to “enhance your news consumption experience.” As a result, AT&T Mobile Barcodes will now be featured on USA Today newspaper pages.

According to this morning’s announcement, USA Today readers can now use nearly any QR scanning application, including the free AT&T Code Scanner, to launch interactive, multimedia content on their mobile devices.

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Smartphone applications and mobile barcodes are poised to spur greater innovation and sales in the marketing world in 2012, according to a new survey commissioned by AT&T.

AT&T commissioned a survey of 501 U.S.-based marketing or advertising professionals in hopes of better understanding “the opinions and attitudes of marketing and advertising executives toward mobile marketing, specifically mobile barcodes, and the factors that potentially could accelerate their use in the future.”

What did the survey reveal? For starters, 88 percent of respondents expect their mobile marketing program to increase before the end of 2012.

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While Black Friday brought a flurry of shoppers to retail stores, it also brought a flurry of barcode scans according to NeoMedia.

The company saw a dramatic increase of more than 240% in mobile barcode scans via its app on Black Friday compared to last year, including a 13% jump in 2D scans over 1D.  Looking deeper at the most popular types of barcodes being scanned, 2D is the front-runner by far with roughly 87% versus just 13% for 1D.  In 2010 for comparison, 74% of scans were 2D versus 26% for 1D codes.

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Today we continue 3Seventy’s “MobileMinute” weekly video series, where Andy Kennedy takes on the topic of QR codes.

For frequent readers of MMW you know that we’ve always had mixed feelings on QR codes.  While the concept is more than promising and adoption is only getting stronger, a majority of the implementations we see today translate to poorly executed campaigns that actually detract from the benefits QR codes are supposed to provide.

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Hoping to help marketers unlock the potential of marketing with mobile barcodes, the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) on Thursday published a new white paper titled “Mobile Barcodes: an Overview for Marketers.”

The MMA says that the white paper explains in a concise, easy to understand fashion how marketers can leverage mobile barcodes to give their customers access to information, multi-media content, promotional opportunities, retail store locations, discounts and coupons, samples, and more.

And the timing of the white paper’s release couldn’t be more opportune.

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State lotteries are routinely turning to the mobile channel to inspire would-be ticket buyers to press their luck.

In another illustrative example of this burgeoning phenomenon, this week Hipcricket announced that the Virginia Lottery has selected its platform as part of a multichannel mobile marketing initiative.

The Virginia Lottery is working to provide its players with a number of choices for interacting with the organization, including QR (Quick Response) codes, Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) and an opt-in mobile alert program to drive consumer engagement.

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“I don’t want to grow up… I’m a Toys ‘R’ Us kid,” the famous jingle goes. But while the legendary toy retailer’s customers may not want to grow up, the company’s marketing strategies certainly have.

This week, Toys ‘R’ Us revealed that QR code integration has come to the toy retailer in full ahead of the mad rush of holiday shoppers that will drive big business for Toys ‘R’ Us in the weeks ahead.

The QR codes in question are making their debut in “The Great Big Toys ‘R’ Us Book” catalog, which will enable shoppers to learn more about a wide array of products before actually purchasing them. The company says that “The Great Big Toys ‘R’ Us Book” will begin turning up at stores and in mailboxes this weekend.

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