ReadWriteEnterprise

Mobile UX designers and marketing and analytics firm Nellymoser today released a comprehensive study of print magazine action codes. They took the time to review every 2011 issue of the top 100 national magazine titles: all 164,000 pages' worth. They found a total of 4,400 QR Codes, MicrosoftTags, Spyderlynk SnapTags, BEE Tags, JagTags, Digimarc watermarks and other codes with an iPhone or Android device. For each tag, they scanned and ran the resulting Web page or video. At least give them props for being thorough.

The results show to no surprise that despite their problems, tags are becoming more popular, from an average of two per issue at the beginning of the year to more than six nearing the end.

We've written extensively about QR codes, including a story that ran earlier this week about using them as a virtual tourism activity. But an announcement from Hipscan.com caught our attention about how you can actually use these curious codes to generate hard cash money.

If geocaching isn't geeky enough for you, here's a new tech trend that gets you out of your chair and pounding the streets: guided tours powered by QR (quick response) codes. Some travel and tourism organizations are now using QR codes to replicate the self-guided audio tours that have long been a staple of museums or landmarks. Enterprises looking to deploy these tags in their own marketing collateral might want to take a closer look at some of these examples.