Business cards get digital flair with QR codes
By: Mark HaslanFebruary 24th, 2010
Despite the ever increasing pervasion of the internet and technology with all aspects of everyday life, there are some things whose traditional, print format remains too meaningful to eliminate – one of these things is business cards.
Yes, one can easily go to LinkedIn or Facebook to get someone’s contact information, but there is nothing like being at a trade show – or even a bar – and being able to hand out a business card. In addition, its potential for customization allows business owners to express their company’s brand and identity along with their contact information – something that the more standardized LinkedIn and even Facebook cannot capture.
Yet no matter the value of traditional business cards, technology has begun to creep in, though instead of hindering the use of printed business cards it has sustained it – business card scanners are now relatively commonplace, allowing recipients to process and upload contact information from cards automatically.
A similar phenomenon is being seen with QR codes, two-dimensional graphics that look like barcodes and can be scanned from a mobile phone. The phone automatically "reads" the barcode and translates it into meaningful information, thereby presenting a variety of possible uses.
For example, some businesses are using advertisements with QR codes, so that when consumers use their mobile phones to read the code they are taken to the product page on the company’s website for the product used in the advertisement. There are even extreme uses – some have reported seeing tattoos of QR codes on a person’s body, which, when scanned, translate into a traditional tattoo image.
Yet the technology also has great potential for business cards, writes TMCNet. There are a variety of online offerings which allow businesses to convert their vCards – the traditional business format for contact information such as name, telephone number, email address, and company name – into QR codes, which can be then put on business cards. This means that recipients can scan the QR code on the business card, and the information is automatically converted back into vCard format and uploaded to the person’s address book.
Or, says the website, the QR code on the business card could translate into the company’s URL address, so that recipients who scan the code with their phone are automatically taken to the company’s website. This would be in addition to the regular contact information used on the business card.
Though the technology is not yet widespread, the potential uses are manifold. So who says traditional and digital can’t work together in harmony?
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