Publishing your own codes

An important part of the codescanning experience is creating codes on your own and sharing them with your friends or using them in business. Today I want to focus on the "Contact" code. You can make one for free if you navigate to http://www.scanlife.com/ on your computer and sign up for a free personal account.

I've attached such a code with my own information. A lot of this is fictitious data, so you may get an odd experience if you click through too far on some of the links. This demo shows, however, that the experiences presented are real, and can be accessed with very little trouble with a level of flexibility that is hard to duplicate.

Consider the code presented here for me, Al Franks. Were you to select any of the categories presented, you would find that they are all operational (They just don't go anywhere, with the exception of the email al.franx@gmail.com, which I WOULD get).

Codes like this are ideal in at least two situations. First is in the signature line of an email message, where you normally present address info. Second is on the back of a business card.

While the utility of these use cases right now is high--i.e, easier and more accurate than entering a lot of data--it will increase even more over time. That's because users can actually save the information presented to their mobile "contacts" list. Imagine replacing the typing, the unreliable business card scan, or keeping (and probably losing if you are at all like me) the physical card forever. Right now, a handful of phones support the "saving" function, but this will increase steadily over the near future. I for one look forward to the time I can scan all the cards I get at a conference or tradeshow into my mobile, which then synchs to my primary contact list on my PC.