Hotcards, Full Color Printing In The Nation

Goofy gimmick or wave of the future?

The correct answer is: wave of the future! Just because it looks goofy now, doesn't mean the technology won't hit its stride. Integrating augmented reality into print is the beginning of a whole new age for print media, and it's really kicking off with business card design.

An augmented reality business card is usually designed like a regular card on one side. However, flip it over, and the back side contains an augmented reality marker, looking something like this (albeit quite a bit smaller):

When held up to a webcam, this marker will come to life, displaying a 3D image onscreen so that, through your video, it looks like you're holding a card with 3D graphics projected out of it. (Scroll down for examples.)

There's really no limit to what can be done with these cards. They usually contain not only images, but a video of the card's person introducing herself or her business. Other cool features include:

• Clickable links to LinkedIn or Facebook profiles.
• Live updated Twitterfeeds, so that recipients can see what you're doing in real time.
• A flash app that allows recipients to call you with one click.
• Multiple images (i.e. a portfolio) that can be scrolled through by manipulating the card.

Ideally, as Tom Carpenter points out on the excellent Future Digital Life blog, there will soon be smartphone apps that work with AR business cards so that recipients will instantly be able to hold a new card up to their phone and see all this cool business in action.

Check out the collection of videos below to get a better idea of what this new technology is all about. And don't worry, it won't be long before the AR business card is no longer the exclusive dominion of the IT geek. These cards will soon begin to feature the sexy and hopelessly bland corporate faces we've all come to know, love, and expect from our networking media.

Augmented Business Card from jonas on Vimeo.