Business Cards Land

At Businesscardland we’re interested in any and all technology related to business cards Therefore, we are naturally excited about all the new business card apps that are available. We feel that any technology that adds value to the business card is an excellent idea.

The business card apps that are of particular interest to us are the business card scanning apps. These apps utilize OCR technology (optical character recognition) – a relatively new technology that enables your phone to scan images and convert that photo-data into selectable text that you can automatically apply to your phone and contact directories. Although there are many of these apps available, the following apps represent the most popular OCR’s on the market.

Business Card Reader $5.99 (available on iphone )

In principal, this is an excellent iphone app that gives you the ability to convert scanned images into text that can be automatically added to your contact folder. You can also view the info in “card holder” mode where you can scroll a directory of scanned business cards – clicking on the image to bring up their contact info.

The LinkedIn feature is a neat way of searching for your contacts in the LinkedIn directory without leaving the Business Card app.

World Card Mobile $5.99/ World Card Contacts $1.99 (available on iphone and other mobile phones)

This iphone app does a good job of closely mimicking the iphone’s native address and contacts application – really easy to use. Once you’ve scanned your cards it creates a scrolling, searchable list of of all your contacts. Like Business Card Reader, but with more contact and search options, it also provides a “business card mode,” in which you can view, phone, email or text your contacts via their business card scans.

The major downside of this app is that you have to purchase both the scanner and the contact directory app! They don’t come as one package.

ProOnGo Business Card Reader (Free) (available on iphone and other mobile phones)

The best thing about this app is that it’s FREE, although it doesn’t provide the directory options that the other apps can supply you with, the scanner is no better or worse than other (more expensive) apps.

Google Goggles (Free)(currently unavailable for the iphone- available for Android)

I’m mentioning this app because, being Google technology, it will hopefully evolve into a better functioning business card reader. With the Google search engine infrastructure behind it, it also gives the user more contact search options. Upon scanning a business card, the user is able to more adequately and instantly search the selectable data using the Google search engine.

Google Goggles wasn’t designed specifically for Business card reading, instead, it has multiple uses as an OCR – scanning and utilizing most texts and pictures and turning them into searchable content, ie, taking a picture of a DVD cover and turning this optical data into a selectable list of links and information associated with that product.

The Major Problem with Business Card Reader Apps

The Problem with all these apps are that they rely on printed text to be in a very strict text format to be recognized. I could successfully scan the following business card and turn all its information into usable text data.

An easy Business Card to Scan

But I wouldn’t have a cat-in-hells chance of converting any data from this (semi) elaborate business card!

This business card won't scan

The other major downfall is that you have to hold the camera and take the picture at an exact parallel to the business card , otherwise, it simply won’t work.

Business card scanners also find it difficult to distinguish between certain characters, such as “5’s” and “S’s” . The business cards that you scan, also have to be in a legible font! These readers won’t recognize fancy fonts, handwritten fonts, or cursive text.

It is also worth noting that all these apps only work with 3Gs auto-focus cameras. If you are only rocking a 3G phone – forget it!

At the moment, OCR technology is too flawed! I predict that it’ll take Google another two or three years to create a business card reader that can adequately read images.

Popularity: 74% [?]

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