Video: Business cards get smarter

People now are getting more and more creative in terms of doing business. Even the plainest business cards are beginning to develop. As BBC News stated, “In this age of digital-everything the traditional business card is fast becoming irrelevant.” That being said, there are quite a few new apps being invented that are dedicated to digital business cards. CamCard and CardMunch are great examples: both of them read business cards accurately and saves them onto the cellular device or even onto the viewer’s LinkedIn account (online business profiles). Another type of creative business cards that people are tackling is the “QR codes”- one scan and it brings the viewers to all sorts of different contents. However, there are also arguments that NFC (Near Field Communication) will become a “game changer” in the future, seeing that it allows instant data transfer from the business card to one’s cellular device. Either way, with the advancement of technology, business cards can now give viewers more information than they previously could. With a click of a button or, even better, a movement, one can save and create connections that will never be lost.

Here is a QR code that links right to my blog (which is actually the one you are on now.) 

Works Cited:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24157796

http://www.businessinsider.com/smart-business-cards–rehashing-hashable-2011-3

Seeing that today’s technology has advanced so rapidly, more and more visual media we perceive has become deceptive. In order to advertise for their products, companies now use a great amount of editing mechanisms to produce artificial and exaggerated advertisements.

L’Oreal (a French cosmetics group), for instance, used an excessive amount of Photoshop editing to exaggerate the effects of their mascara products. These advertisements, however, have been taken down by the US National Advertising Division, a group that has been banning Photoshop in Cosmetic Ads since 2011. The advertisement of the anti-wrinkle cream, another of L’Oreal’s products, was also said to be misleading and was later on banned in the UK.

Personally, I believe businesses should not use any Photoshop or editing mechanism in their advertisements seeing that it demos the qualities that the actual product does not hold. Not only are they misleading, it is also unethical to deceive the consumers into buying the product. And even though the company may benefit in the short term (if the product sells well), they will eventually ruin their own reputation in the long run.

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Sources:

L’Oreal’s Mascara Ads: http://www.businessinsider.com/loreal-pulled-mascara-ads-because-of-photoshop-2013-3?op=1

L’Oreal’s Anti-aging Cream Ad: http://www.businessinsider.com/why-was-this-rachel-weisz-ad-banned-in-britain-2012-2