The new version of QR Card Us separates the QR link itself from the 'hard card,' or physical business card, so that customers can buy standalone QR Cards - mobile-friendly Web pages from which contact info can be saved - without worrying about their physical cards becoming outdated. It also adds Organizations, which allow a moderator to manage QR Cards for a company, club or any kind of group. Finally, the update adds Notes, which lets users attach any kind of text note about a new contact to their saved info.

While QR Card Us provides color, layout and typography choices for both the physical and Web cards, many prospective customers requested more control over their own brand. Thanks to the power of Web-based communication, the flexibility of the small team and the online core of QR Card Us, Spearhead Dev was able to iterate quickly to respond to these concerns within a week.

To learn more about QR Card Us, check out our initial post, in which 19-year-old co-founder Michael Schade describes his vision of "making technology accessible for everyone." Also make sure to visit their website at qrcard.us.

We've also covered lots of different ways mobile Web technologies have been applied to business and personal networking, which you can explore here.

Have you ever used a mobile business card reader for networking? Tell us about it in the comments.

By moving from a direct vCard scan to a Web link, QR Card can now provide users with detailed analytics to measure the effectiveness of their networking. But if this sounds like some robotic, dystopian vision of the future, with people scanning each other's bar codes instead of shaking hands, you've got the wrong idea. Michael Schade, 19-year-old creator of QR Card Us, has designed this whole experience around getting the contact exchange out of the way, so people can concentrate on getting to know each other. "Existing technologies are great in their initial idea of making things automatic," Schade says, "but unfortunately, the technology tends to get in the way of real-world communication, and we want to get rid of that. It should make things better, not make it harder to connect."

"We want to make sure this technology is accessible," says Schade. Spearhead is used to customers with a range of experience with new technologies, and Schade expects many less savvy users "won't care about analytics." But the flexibility of the Web platform makes advanced uses possible, while the simplicity of the scanning and the interface accommodates users at all levels. "The mission of Spearhead as a whole," he says, "is making technology accessible for everyone."

QR Card Features
QR Card Us began in April as an experiment, Schade says, "to see how people react to the QR Card idea." The first version of the card was large, in order to embed the data from the whole vCard into the QR code, and Schade says the card's size was one of customers' most frequent complaints. The new version addresses that problem, but it's also much more powerful, since the Web link enables one-click connections to Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, as well as analytics. Anyone who scans the card can enter an email address to save the contact. For logged-in Spearhead users (accounts are free for anyone), the contact saves automatically, so all they have to do is scan. They can get right back to talking to the person and download the contact info later.

Another advantage of the Web service, Schade says, is that it allows Spearhead to quickly add new features via the Web form, without requiring customers to order new cards. On the order form, QR Card Us allows for a few customizable font, color, and layout choices that will match between the physical card and the Web form. At launch, there will be four layout choices available. A "Made with http://qrcard.us" tag is available to allow customers to "show their love" as well as direct new customers to the service, Schade says, but it's optional.

An Experiment With QR Codes
We've covered other digital business card solutions that use a variety of technologies, but no one approach has caught on in the real world. We've taken some apps for a test drive, and the results were okay, but the interaction was still awkward. There are so many barriers, from bad interfaces to required third-party applications, that can turn the encounter into more trouble than it's worth. By slimming down to just a Web link to a page of one-click options, QR Card Us can get the exchange over with in a snap.

Many existing solutions scan business cards using optical character recognition, just reading the text on the card, instead of QR codes. The main advantage of OCR is that no one has to get a new business card. But OCR can make mistakes, and it can't convey some data, like profile pictures, that QR codes and Web links can handle easily.

The use of QR codes in mobile computing is on the rise, but the latest studies show that they're still mostly being put to old-school use. Most businesses seem to be using QR codes to pick the low-hanging fruit, reaching wealthy young consumers with traditional marketing efforts, mostly as supplements to products.

But QR Card Us is built around the interaction, not just the newfangled technology. It's designed not to call attention to the futuristic barcode but to get it scanned, saved, and put away. Does this sound like a good way to network to you? Let us know in the comments.

As noted earlier, I had the opportunity to put e-business cards to a real-world test this past week at the DEMO conference. While I found a somewhat workable solution for sending out my contact info to others, I still collected a large stack of paper business cards from the people I met. These cards had to be digitized in order for them to be of any use to me. While people with administrative assistants are fortunate to have this tiresome data entry process handled for them, those of us without are stuck doing it ourselves. We can either sit at the keyboard for hours or use a scanner. Shouldn't there be a better way?

Surprisingly, there haven't been many options for getting our paper cards to digital format outside of using a business card scanner until now. While it's true that many people use these small, portable scanners to update their email or CRM contact lists, it's hard to believe that folks are truly satisfied with this solution.

Now, scanning in a card or two by themselves is not a big deal, but after returning from a trade show or conference, you'll often have a much larger stack of cards to deal with. What before was a quick few-minutes task now requires you to carve out a much larger chunk of your day. Since you've likely been out of the office for some time, you probably have much more pressing issues than dealing with those cards upon your return. That task goes immediately to the bottom of your priority list. Eventually the cards end up in a shoebox somewhere never to be seen again.

Today, however, we have a couple of new options for dealing with this situation. The first involves a company called Shoeboxed. Primarily a service which digitizes and categorizes receipts, they now do business card scanning, too. You can mail your cards to them (they can even send you an envelope!) and they will scan them in for you. The output is provided in a format which can be imported into Outlook, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Gmail, and most other contact programs.

More recently, Shoeboxed teamed up with note taking application Evernote to provide a solution that's a must-have for any active Evernote users. Through the new partnership, you're able to send any Shoeboxed content directly to Evernote where it then becomes searchable.

Option Two: CloudContacts

For those already ingrained in Evernote, the above is a great solution, but if you're starting fresh you might be interested in a single company instead of a combination service. A new option is CloudContacts, a service create by Allen Stern of Center Networks.

Like Shoeboxed, with CloudContacts you also have the option of mailing in your cards, either with your own envelope or the company can send you one.

If you work in an office, access to things like manila envelopes and stamps or postage machines is easy, but for home workers it often still requires an extra errand to the office supplies store and the Post Office. That's why when CloudContacts announced they would now accept emailed images sent from your camera phone, it finally became a reasonable option for me. This email service starts at $4.95 per month for 20 cards and $8.95 per month for 40 cards. To use the snail-mail CloudContacts service, it's an additional $29.95 to upload up to 100 business cards, $79.95 for up to 300 cards and $124.95 for up to 500 cards. You can go with just the email-only package, though. I did both.

Via Snail Mail

The postal mail option is really no harder than stuffing the cards in an envelope and putting them in the mailbox. However, there is a piece of paper you have to print out and put in the envelope, too, and that means you'll need to keep ink in your printer. (There's another trip to the office supplies store!) Again, unless you have a fully functional home office complete with envelopes, stamps, a printer, ink, etc., the snail mail option isn't ideal.

Via Email

Instead, taking a camera phone photo and emailing it is much easier and faster. You're provided with a special email address which you can add to your contact list in your phone for speedy access. As you're out and about, you can snap photos and email them right away so you don't end up with a stack of cards at the end of the day that need to be dealt with.

There was only one problem with the email option in my case. I'm an iPhone owner and the iPhone has a terrible camera. In fact, it's downright unusable with this service. But there is a workaround for that. It's called the Griffin Clarfi case for iPhone and it was recommended by numerous people I ran into this past week. This iPhone case comes with a built-in macro lens for close-up photography, allowing you to shoot what you want in incredible detail - like business cards, for example. At only $15 (US) on Amazon, the purchase was a no-brainer.

In the meantime, though, I had to use a regular camera to take the photos. Fortunately, CloudContacts let me send in a batch instead of one at a time.

Once the photos are received and digitized, you'll receive an email from the service (from Allen himself, actually). I asked if the personal attention I received was typical and surprisingly, it is. Allen says he believes that support can make or break a company.

The CloudContacts Web Site

When you log in to CloudContacts to see your data, the initial interface is no-frills - but in a good way. It's just a list of your contacts displaying their name, company, address, and phone number. A search box sits at the top of the screen if you need to look for a specific person.

Click on the view button for any contact and you'll be taken to a page where all their information is saved, including the photo of their business card. Also on this page is a Google map showing their address, links to their info on LinkedIn and Facebook, and, if known, their IM/chat networks are provided, too.

The data entered was entirely accurate. Apparently, that's because CloudContacts isn't doing OCR (Optical Character Recognition), or so reports VentureBeat. For data to be this accurate, it's easy to assume there are human editors on the other end, but Allen won't confirm this, calling it his "secret sauce." We're curious, of course, but as long as the data remains accurate, we suppose the magic can remain a mystery.

From any contact's page or from the main page of the site, you can click "edit" to add more details to the contact info including how you know them or other personal notes. There are also links for downloading an individual vCard or printing out a single contact's info.

Importing into Your Email

Again like Shoeboxed, you entire contact list can be exported into Standard CSV format, vCard format, Highrise CSV format, or in Yahoo/Gmail Contacts CSV format. Doing so provides a file which you can then import into your preferred program. Since Gmail merges duplicate contacts upon import, you can continue to use this option every time without worries of creating multiple versions of the same contact. Other programs may vary.

In Gmail, you're also able to tag your contacts upon import by adding them to a group. I've begun to use this option to group people by business and/or where we met (CES, DEMO, etc.). But with CloudContacts, I can't categorize or tag subsets of my contact list for selective import into Gmail. That would be a great feature. (Perhaps it will be added later - Allen seems open to feedback about the service.)

Conclusion: Worth It

When the iPhone case arrives, I'll probably turn off the snail mail service - I doubt I'll ever use it again at that point. But overall, the CloudContacts service was useful and worth the money spent - especially since I was able to get a backlog of cards into the system quickly. Now if they would just do an iPhone app too, I'd have a complete solution!

Image Credit: Andrew Turner

This past week, I had the opportunity to put e-business cards to a real-world test thanks to a recent trip to the DEMO 09 conference in Palm Desert, California. You would think that if any group of people would have adopted the electronic business card model for exchanging their contact data, it would be the technology community. Yet at conferences like DEMO and all the others, printed paper cards are still exchanged. Why is that?

The first step to going paperless is easy: don't pack your business cards when heading out to an event. Old habits die hard and if you have even a handful of cards in your possession, I guarantee you that you'll use them at some point. Exchanging paper cards is much faster than tapping away at a mobile phone, so there will be several times where you'll be tempted to just break out the paper product if it's at hand. Better to go "cold turkey" and not give yourself any other options.

SnapDat: An iPhone App for e-Business Cards

Next, you'll need to choose a mobile application for exchanging cards. As an iPhone owner, I went straight to the iTunes Store to find my app. Other smartphone owners may not have as large a selection since the other app stores - like those for Android, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile - are just getting started.

In iTunes, you'll encounter a number of e-business card applications, so picking one can be difficult. To find the one right for you, you'll need to pay close attention to the details. On the surface, many of these apps may sound like they would do, but in real-world scenarios, you'll quickly encounter their limitations.

For example, apps like myCard, FriendBook, and Nameo (iTunes URLs) let you exchange contact information over the air with other iPhone users. This feature is called a "handshake." While this is indeed a nifty trick, in the real world you're still going to encounter enough non-iPhone users to make these types of apps a non-starter.

Another application called DropCard lets you text their service with an email address. It will then send your contact info via email to the recipient. I skipped this option as well because I don't have a mobile plan with unlimited text messages and didn't want to go over my limit.

Instead, while at DEMO, I put an iPhone application called SnapDat to the test. The application was "serviceable," but was still not the ideal solution.

Using SnapDat

What drew me to this app initially was the price tag: free. Whenever possible, I try to find a decent free application before forking out cash for a Pro version.

SnapDat also met my number one requirement which was that it provided a way for me to send cards to others who didn't use the service. Although another application called beamMe is more popular, what intrigued me about SnapDat was that it allows me to create multiple business cards. BeamMe's free application did not permit this. While I could have just entered all my contact info into beamMe, I prefer to keep my identities separate - no need to confuse the recipients.

With SnapDat, the process of setting up your business card is straightforward and it can all be done on the phone. You just enter your contact information, upload a picture (if desired), and pick a theme. That last step, however, was the most disappointing. The themes offered were far from modern, most looking like bad clip art circa Microsoft Office 2003. I found one of the least offensive options (there was no way to create a custom theme) and then proceeded to test the service.

Unfortunately, SnapDat is yet another application which is far too concerned with gathering more users than it is with providing you with a useful tool. Upon launching the app, you're first presented with the option to enter in a user's SnapDat ID. No one I encountered had a SnapDat ID, so from the get-go, I'm having to press a button to bypass this option. It's additional time-wasters like this that make the process of using SnapDat slower than it needs to be.

On the next screen, you can enter in an email address and hit "send." The recipient gets an email with your contact info both in the body of the email and as a vCard attachment which they can then add to their email address book or phone. The sending process was easy but upon completion, SnapDat pops up a message reminding you to inform your new business contact to check their junk mail if they didn't get the email. That's a useful tip for the first time you send a card, but it appears every time you use SnapDat which is more than an annoyance - it's an inconvenience - especially since there's no option to shut the reminder off.

The service also comes with a "SnapDirectory" where you can store the SnapCards others send you, but - let's be honest - this is not a feature you'll use much...if at all. The primary reason for using an e-card app is to send a vCard to someone's email where it can then be stored in their contacts database, not in some niche iPhone application.

OK, But Not Perfect

In the end, SnapDat was, like I said, "serviceable," but the terrible themes and bothersome pop-ups took away from what could have been a much more useful application. However, for anyone who wants to create more than one business card, it's worth a look.

SnapDat is available from the iTunes store here.

Stay tuned for Part 2, where I'll tell you what to do with that stack of paper cards you've collected.

The MOO contest wasn't a big production, but rather a weekend-long project that was held at last month's BarCampLondon5. According to Stefan Magdalinski, MOO CTO, the mashups are "a little rough and ready (knocked together in hours, in true barcamp spirit), but they do demonstrate the range of things one can do quite nicely."

The Winner

The winning application built with the MOO API goes to Neil Crosby's Ten Word MOO Card. With this mashup, the app takes the best rated reviews from the The Ten Word Review web site, which lets you review anything in exactly ten words, and then creates MOO cards from the reviews. To make cards featuring your reviews, you need only enter your username in the box provided and the app will generate the cards for you. Here's an example:

However, if you're not an active user of The Ten Word Review, you might be more interested in some of the other applications instead.

1) Make MOO postcards via MMS: This app from Sam Machin looks really handy as it solves the problem of getting images from phone to website by utilizing MMS to bypass the tedious the offloading and uploading process. The app receives an MMS sent to a shortcode and posts that to MOO. It then SMS's you back with a URL from which you can visit the MOO.com web site to continue the design and complete the order. With this app, you could, for example, create MOO cards on the fly from the conference you're attending. How fun! 

2) Make MOO Postcards from Flickr Sunsets: Nathan O'Hanlon's app lets you create MOO cards from Flickr photos of sunsets in your area. The mashup's interface isn't pretty, but hey, it was built in only 3 hours! All you have to do is enter in your location, and the app grabs photos from Flickr and sends them to MOO.com:

Isn't Tampa pretty?

3) Make MOO minicards from Amazon book covers: Simon Willison's app could be handy for published authors. With this app, you can create MOO minicards from Amazon book covers. The app lets you search for a book by any keyword - author, subject, title, etc.

4) Generate minicards with your Wii codes on them for sharing: Dominic Hodgson's app will appeal to avid Wii gamers. This app has the most well-designed and developed front-end and lets you customize options like font, font size, front image color, etc. before creating the cards.

You have to appreciate E's creative URL - it's memorable, but also makes you curious. E? What's E?, you wonder. When I first encountered the URL, it was in a tweet which read "I'm now using E to add friends to my Twitter account. More info on http://hellomynameise.com." Did I click though? You bet.

"E," as it turns out, is a new spin on digital contact exchange. Instead of using paper business cards, you use your phone to exchange data. At first, you may think that sounds very much like mobile contact service Dropcard, but it's not. The only similarity between E and Dropcard is that they both allow you to customize your profile online and share it with others, but the similarities end there.

To use Dropcard, you either text or use a mobile app which emails your contact info to the person you just met. With E, you go to a mobile web URL that lets you exchange a passcode with your new contact. The passcode is simply a five-digit code which is entered into the mobile web app itself. They show your theirs, you show them yours...that sort of thing. Once connected, you don't receive an email message with their contact info like with Dropcard. E goes a step further and actually adds that contact to all the services you've already integrated with E.

Service Integration

At the moment, E allows you to integrate Twitter, PICNIC (a network for the PICNIC conference), and Soocial. However, Delicious, European social portal Netlog, and LastFM are listed as coming soon. After you integrate these services with E, when you add a contact they're immediately added to all those other web services, too. And thanks to Soocial, an address book solution, E contact info can also synchronize with your email address book in Gmail, Highrise, your OSX address book, or the address book on your phone itself.

Barriers To Adoption

E faces one of the typical problems that many web 2.0 startups do - they don't work for you until a lot of people are using it. Just because you have a profile on E, that doesn't mean that those you meet do. And unlike a service like Dropcard, there isn't a way to use E without the other person's involvement.

In addition to the service itself, the developers of E came up with a crazy but interesting idea for a hardware device called the "Connector." With this device, you can exchange contact info with others just by touching the two connectors together. While gadget junkies and shiny object collectors may find this device appealing, it could easily remain a niche gadget that ends up sitting on the shelf next to your Chumby and Nazbaztag. To cross the adoption barrier, those at E would be smart to sponsor events where everyone gets a Connector at registration. After a few high-profile events, they would have industry movers and shakers on board, and that's always a good place to start. Sponsoring events may be just what the company is planning, though, since their site mentions that the "Connector will be released at large events in the near future."

Will It Work?

At present, the E service is very basic. Twitter integration is the only service of note that works yet. (Soocial looks great, but is in private beta). The profiles themselves are also not as flexible as those with Dropcard are. You can easily add and remove services with Dropcard, but with E, I wasn't even able to add a second company that represents my second job. The services section of the web site is confusing - it doesn't allow you to do anything more than customize which services are connected. The actual profile information is entered under "Settings," so you can't specify that only personal contacts get your home address, for example. It appears to be all-or-nothing.

E still has far to go to become a truly successful digital contact exchange service, but at least they're trying something different. Because they operate via mobile URL, not an app specific to any one device, they're better positioned for more universal adoption that a service that designates itself as iPhone-only, for example.

The service is in private beta testing now, but you have the opportunity to make an impassioned plea as to why they should invite you on the signup page here. (If you get in, feel free to add me: 17975.)

Check out the video below to see E in action:

Hello, my name is E from Renato Valdés Olmos on Vimeo.

Retaggr is a nifty interactive profile card service. Create a new and unique way for people to not only email or call you, but also connect with you on social networks that you're active on. Promote your blog, work, and RSS feed all in the same space. Once your done creating your profile card, share it with friends via email or embed it in your blog.

211me

211me is a funky and creative business card service. However, a key feature of 211me is being able to send your pre-made business cards to someone's mobile phone. If your phone supports v-card downloading, you can save the information from each business card sent to you. 211me gives users a ton of room to express themselves with their 211me cards by providing a great selection of customization options to choose from.

DropCard

DropCard allows you to create both personal and business cards and send them via email from your cellphone. However, it's a little more limited than the previous services listed. For example, the number of services available to add to your card is short compared to 211me and Retaggr. Nevertheless, it makes up for what it lacks with it's nifty text messaging service and the option to add in your social network profiles manually.

The Future of Business Cards?

Business cards are exchanged left and right at conferences and tech gatherings all the time. However, how many cards do you keep up with? Will the fact that people can now send you such information to your cell phone or inbox drive you crazy or help you manage your contacts even better? I personally wouldn't want people emailing me such information. However, I wouldn't mind using these services to manage contacts in my cellphone, especially 211me. What do you think: could this be the future of business cards?