It seemed like 2011 disappeared faster than a discounted tablet on Black Friday. It certainly left its mark on the digital world. From a tech perspective, 2011 was the year that brought us the continued upsurge in all things mobile (such as smartphones, tablets and apps), the social media-fueled Arab Spring, the emergence of social commerce, the demise of Flash, the resurgence of tech IPOs (with LinkedIn, Zynga, Groupon and Pandora leading the way) and the untimely passing of Steve Jobs.

So it’s your birthday. And everybody knows about it (thanks Facebook). Everybody takes the initiative to crowd your wall with motivational statements like “have a good one, dude.” Thanks guys, but how about a real birthday cake, gift or even a hand signed card that you can keep?

2010, the year that brought us the iPad, augmented reality ads, the attack of Groupon and the group buying clones and the rise of location-based social networks, has come to a close. Winners like Apple and Facebook may look upon last year fondly given their dominant respective business performances whereas much of the rest of America may just be breathing a sigh of relief because the fragile fed-fueled economic recovery did not collapse.

QR codes, or quick response codes, are the dominant for of two dimensional codes that allow anyone with an appropriately equipped cameraphone to scan or “read” data and media available in or through the code. They initially made their big spash in Japan in the mid-1990s and have since been embraced there as a key means for marketers to inform and engage the advanced mobile consumers in the market.