ReadWriteWeb

For all the effectiveness and efficiency mobile technology and geolocation offer to marketers, you'd think that traditional, paper-based methods of marketing would be practically extinct by now.

While things may be headed in that direction, we're not quite there yet, according to a recent survey conducted by Quova, a provider of location-based marketing services.

Of the many challenges mobile application developers face today, one of the most pressing is that of app discovery. There are over 330,000 apps for iPhone, 75,755 for iPad and 206,000+ for Android, at the last count. It is not enough to simply launch an app anymore - the app must be found...somehow. It must ranked, reviewed, indexed, blogged about and tweeted, or it will linger at the bottom of the charts, as an undiscovered gem.

To aid with app discovery, a startup called Quixey is launching a suite of tools for application developers (even those who build for the desktop and Web, in addition to mobile), which will monitor all of a developers' applications in one centralized dashboard and provide analytics. With the detailed information the dashboard provides, developers will be able to quickly adapt their promotional efforts based on what the world is saying about their apps.

Mobile marketing solutions provider Blue Bite and digital media company Reach Media Group (RMG) are teaming up to deploy NFC technology to over a third of RMG's 200,000 digital screens over the next six months.  In addition, Blue Bite is working with other partner networks to bring its total NFC deployment to 200,000 screens across the U.S. These digital screens, such as those found in malls, theaters, bars, clubs, gyms, airplanes, taxis, and elsewhere, allow advertisers to display video ads to millions of viewers per month. RMG, in particular, provides access to over 70 million viewers monthly.

Now those viewers will be able to learn more about any given advertiser using NFC technology. Simply put, it's one of the largest commercial rol-outs of NFC-based advertising this country has seen so far.

Many iPhone app developers, specifically, game developers, looking to increase their apps' visibility among the hundreds of thousands of applications available in iTunes today, have been using incentivized installs to increase their download numbers. These programs allowed end users who didn't want to pay for in-app purchases and virtual goods another way to continue playing their favorite games. All users had to do was simply download an app from another developer, in return for credits which could be spent in the game they were currently playing.

But Apple recently changed its policy in this area, and will no longer allow publishers participating in these sorts of programs into the iTunes App Store due to what Apple said was "an excessive influence in the listing order or ranking on the App Store."

How many games were potentially affected by this change? A new report from app store search company Xyologic aims to find out.

Apple recently took actions to dissuade developers from participating in incentivized install programs, meaning programs that encouraged consumers to download new apps in return for virtual goods and other bonuses which could be used in mobile gaming and other apps. But while those changes may have negatively affected some companies' programs, for example, Tapjoy, it has led to opportunities for others.

Today, one of those hoping to benefit from the increasingly important marketing needs of app developers is Appia. It's launching a pay-per-install ad network that it says offers guaranteed ROI to developers. The service launched today at the 2011 AppNation conference in San Francisco.

A new contest sponsored by OPEN, American Express's small business division, is offering five small businesses a $20,000 check $2,500 in Facebook ad credits and a trip to the social networking giant's Palo Alto headquarters to learn more about social marketing.

The "Big Break for Small Businesses" contest is open to the owners of U.S.-based small businesses with $10 million in annual revenue or less.

A recent post on ReadWriteWeb, titled, "Why Most Facebook Marketing Doesn't Work" has received some attention as of late. The compelling headline surely gets brands, agencies, developers and anyone else interested in the Facebook eco-system to click. Essentially, the author puts forth a case that certain marketing tactics on Facebook don't work, across the board. These tactics include like blocks, extended permission, unbranded apps, lots of apps on one tab, sweepstakes, and photo and video contests.

In my experience working advising some of the world's largest brands on Facebook, I agree with the author that some of these tactics are generally not best practices, however, applying a blanket statement to anything when it comes to social media is a slippery slope.

Most startups start small, thinking to expand after learning some valuable lessons, including making sure they're not releasing bad products that could sink the company or making bad decisions that could do the same. Toward that aim, most startups focus on building one product at a time, which may be their only product for the first several years of the business.

But there are pros and cons to selling only one product. For some startups, it may make sense to stay focused on one product, where others would be happier and more successful if they sold multiple products.

After years of being prevalent in places like Japan and South Korea, QR codes are finally showing up all over the place in the United States. In magazine ads, on public signs and even on vehicles, these two-dimensional barcodes are popping up more and more. But how effective are they?

About 72% of smart phone users say they would be likely to recall an advertisement that contained a QR code, according to a recent study by Baltimore advertising agency MGH. Of course, that's just people who own smart phones, which is only a fraction of the overall population (about 27% according to Comscore).

Keeping up with every tech headline is hard enough for anybody, let alone busy professionals. To help, ReadWriteBiz rounds up the week's most important tech news and insights for small- and medium-sized businesses.

As tablet adoption grows, so too does the amount of sensitive data people transmit using the devices. Almost half (48%) of tablet owners have transmitting sensitive data from the device, according to a survey we wrote about on Monday.