Your business card is (hopefully) passed on hundreds of times a year, and anyone who's designed one knows that its purpose serves as more than a transfer of important contact information. The design of your business card alone can set you apart from others in your field, catching the attention of clients amongst a sea of boring old business cards. This is especially the case if you hand someone an augmented reality business card created by the Blippar app.

If you have yet to get a glimpse of this amazing technology, just do a Google search and feast your eyes upon some incredible effects. It's kind of hard to believe everything you see on your computer screen or smartphone is all caused by holding up a simple business card (amazing, isn't it?) to a webcam connected to your computer or integrated into your phone, but that's exactly what happens. Pretty cool.

How It Works

Simply put the image on the backside of the card, also known as an ARtag, up to a webcam, whether on your laptop or smartphone. This signals an image to appear, usually the person or people the card represents (it just keeps getting better!), seeming to stand right there in your hand although you are merely holding the card. Your software uses this image on the back of the card as if they were coordinates on a map, placing the images in the video in this spot.

Get the Blippar App

JWT London, an advertising agency, created the Blippar app which takes advantage of the built-in camera already on the phone. Aim your phone at the 'blipp' (ARtag exclusive to Blippar, explained by the company to be a 'b') after opening the app, and try hard to be still as it recognizes the blipp. When the content appears, you are then able to move your phone up down, and at a variety of angles, although you cannot move from side to side as the blipp needs to remain in view of the camera as a reference point. If you can't find anything to blipp, just check out the in-app list of things to blipp. The company states blipps can be on a multitude of products and company logos.

JWT London has also recently begun blipping business cards as well, bringing this amazing service a step further. If you blipp the back of JWT London's actual card you will be treated to their showreel, and as an added bonus, receive directions to their London office. This is the future of business cards, and one has to wonder if we'll even need the actual cards at all.

How to Get It

Head to the App Store if you have an iOS device version 4.0 or later, or the Android Market to download the beta version for your Android version 2.2 and up. You can't beat the price (free!) for this magical way to see the products, people, and businesses around you. What are you waiting for? Get blipping!