NeoMedia Technologies is trying to get the word out that developing a mobile barcode campaign is easy to do, and it’s offering a white paper telling marketers and brands what they should know before they get started.

The white paper, available at http://www.neom.com/resources/white_papers, follows a more technical-oriented paper that the company published last year. The new paper, titled “How to Create a Mobile Barcode Program,” includes real-world examples and examines everything from choosing the right partner to campaign incentives.

With any new media element, there’s uncertainty around how to implement it or thoughts that it might be too complex, but NeoMedia CEO Laura Marriott says the white paper is intended to lay out how easy it is to get a program under way.

As near-field communications (NFC) is grabbing a lot of headlines of late, 2D barcode readers are here today and adoption is growing. Just this month, Starz Entertainment announced it was joining the AT&T Mobile Barcode Services Charter Program as the first TV/network member. Starz is implementing AT&T mobile barcode solutions in select print and outdoor ads.

Industries such as publishing, financial services and retail have been early adopters, Marriott says. Now, barcode readers can be seen nearly everywhere and even though it might seem like it happened overnight, it’s probably been taking off really in the past two years. NeoMedia in its current incarnation was established in the mid-1990s, so it probably doesn’t seem like an overnight sensation to the company.

The new white paper points out that not all barcode reading applications are created equal. Some read standard barcode symbologies, like Data Matrix, QR and Aztec, but many companies have developed their own, proprietary formats. Microsoft’s Tag application reads only its proprietary Tag code format, while the NeoReader reads multiple formats, including UPC/EAN, Data Matrix, Aztec and QR codes.