QR Business Cards and Moo.com

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2011/06/qr-business-cards-and-moo-com/

An edited version of this paid-for post appeared at Moo.com on the 7th of June

QR codes are awesome! I mean, you may think your moo mini-cards are pretty funky - but they're nothing without a QR code.

Why do you hand your card over to someone? You want the recipient to plug your contact details into their address book, right? So you give them a bit of card and then you expect them to tap away on their phone, like a primitive ape, until they've saved your number. And hope they've saved it correctly.

That's just so.... analogue... Isn't there a better way of doing things?

Yes. Yes there is. QR Codes are here and they are going to ROCK YOUR WORLD!

Introducing QR Codes

QR Codes are two dimensional barcodes which can quickly and easily be scanned by most camera phones. They're free to create, easy to use, and they look like this.Go take a look in your phone's app store - you'll find several free readers. If you can't, point your phone to GetReader.com to see what's available for your device.

QR Codes can contain many different types of data - URL, phone number, SMS, and vCard. I'm going to show you how you can integrate these into your Moo Cards.

URL

With a QR code on your Moo Card, you can point people straight to your blog.To your .tel website.Or any other site you like. Perhaps to search Twitter for your hashtag?

Phone Number

Scanning in this code will prompt your phone to give me a call. Why not leave me a message?

SMS

Want someone to scan your card and send you a message? Dead easy.

vCard

Scan this code and my address will appear in your phonebook as if by magicOne thing to note is that these QR codes are rather large - it's probably best to print them on full size cards.

Putting It All Together

Here are some of my cards. I've used free or Creative-Commons images of phones and placed the QR code inside them.

Resources

There are several free sites you can use to create your QR Codes.I recommend using QRstuff to generate these codes.You can also use Google Charts for QR Codes if you want dynamic, highly customised codes.Finally, if you want to generate QR codes on your own site, there are several free resources. I use Swetake's QRCode v0.50.

Final Tips

Here are some tips to make sure you get the most out of your QR codes.

• Use black ink on a white background to ensure the code is readable.
• Ensure there is some whitespace around the code.
• If you resize the QR codes, don't use any interpolation.
• QR Codes can have variable error-correction. Unless your codes are likely to get dirty, you can set this to "low".
• If you're pointing people to a URL, make sure it's mobile friendly.
• Make sure your phone numbers are in International Format (+44 for the UK).
• Be creative! QR Codes are appearing on everything from advertising posters to urban graffiti - make sure yours stand out.

#businessCards #HowTo #moo #mooCards #mooCom #qr #QRCodes

Once again, I have not lived up to the retail industry’s Black Friday expectations. I didn’t buy any presents for anybody on Friday; all of my gift shopping this morning happened in indie physical stores; and this evening’s two online purchases were both business expenses that were going to happen at some point, with only one spurred by a holiday discount.

But the 400 business cards I ordered from Moo.com, my go-to vendor* since 2012, stand out in a different way: They don’t include my @robpegoraro Twitter handle, something that’s been a fixture in the design of my cards since the first batch I ordered in 2011.

I’ve talked about deleting that data point from my cards before. But the downward spiral of the platform now doing business as “X” under Elon Musk’s vain, clueless mismanagement has made that not just easier to contemplate but an overdue move.

Case in point: I’ve tweeted only 10 times this month while spending far more time on Bluesky and Mastodon, in that order of priority. And those tweets have yielded far less #engagement than my posts on those alternative platforms–my most-viewed tweet in November got 1,321 views but only yielded 17 click-throughs to the story I’d shared.

I do continue to visit Twitter to check up on particular accounts and a few lists that I’ve created, but overall that service has fallen far below the level of relevance that would justify it eating up scarce real estate on a mini-sized business card. So I deleted my handle from the card design and used the space saved to bump up the point size for my phone number and e-mail address–identifiers that can’t be undermined by a shitposting billionaire buying a social platform because he has delusions of “everything app” grandeur.

* If you’d like a Moo referral code good for a 25% discount, hit me up in the comments or send me an e-mail.

https://robpegoraro.com/2023/11/25/this-business-card-order-isnt-like-the-others/

#bizCards #BlackFriday #Bluesky #businessCards #businessCardDesign #ElonMuskTwitter #engagement #Mastodon #MooCom #TwitterHandle