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- mobile-friendly Web pages from which contact info can be saved - without worrying about their physical cards becoming outdated.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.

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.