Business Cards IRL

Are business cards in-real-life (IRL) on the verge of extinction?

I could not find any statistics on the the number of business cards printed over time, but I have to believe that other, easier ways of sharing contact information in electronic form has caused a decline in business card printing.

Even business cards IRL are making use of electronic data transfer. Frank, an electrical engineering student at the University of Waterloo created a USB business card that will type out contact information when you plug it into a USB port.

One issue that plagues sharing contact information electronically is the many non-standard ways in which we can do this. A variety of sharing technologies (like BlueTooth, email, and apps) on a variety of devices (PCs, smartphones tablets, etc.) result in too many options.

I'v been experimenting with using a QR code (also known as a 2D code) to share contact information. The use of QR code scanning and deciphering is now ubiquitous on smartphones in countries like Japan.

What do you get when you ask Vladstudio to cross a QR code Vcard and an iPhone lock screen wallpaper? A virtual business card.

It is easy to generate your own virtual business card with a free QR code generator. Use your virtual business card as a wallpaper on your smartphone and it's always available to scan by business contacts with a QR code scanner like Scan. Even smartphone apps like Google and Bing will scann and decipher these virtual business cards.

QR code ubiiquity in the USA may take a while longer, but I'm betting that it it happens soon.