Yesterday, I wrote a post about a company called TagMyDoc that found a pretty useful purpose for QR codes. I was hard pressed to find other actual useful purposes for QR codes, since they’ve become a bit of a marketing fail.

One company disagreed and sent me its QR code pitch, and it’s pretty darn good.

App2Card helps you build simple business cards to promote your app specifically, with a QR code on the back that brings people directly to your download link upon scanning it. The impressive part of the site is that the card itself is unique, in that it takes your app’s icon and makes it the entire front of the card.

If you’re a developer, it’s the perfect handout to get people to check out your app later, especially if you have a great icon.

Find your app, create cards quickly

The site requires no design work from you at all. Simply perform a search for your app if it’s on Apple’s app store, or create a custom card if it’s on another platform.

Creating cards for iOS apps is super simple, as the site grabs your icon and URL automatically. You’re shown the preview of your card, and can purchase them for a pretty good price, considering that they’re a cool custom size.

When you’re at a tech party or in a meeting trying to impress VC’s, dropping a few of these off is way more impressive than giving them your old boring card. After all, it’s your app that’s important, not you. They’ll stand out too.

So perhaps I was wrong, QR codes can be quite interesting when the idea presenting them is unique and executed well.

➤ App2Card

Designer Tim Van Damme was one of the first to code the original business card themed web page, and since there have been countless copies of his work, but also lots of innovation.

A number of companies have launched businesses of the back of the idea, some of the best we’ve listed below.

But which one is the best of the best? That is the question that we will attempt to answer today.

1. Card.ly

Possibly the most well known and widely used online business card service. Card.ly offers many great features, one of the best is in its simplicity, everything is laid out in steps and it’s very simple and fun to use. Card.ly also has the most themes out there, thirty eight and counting; Card.ly can surely fill everyone’s personal tastes. Features like more themes (not all of the 38 are free) and a custom domain can be activated when purchasing a premium subscription at $24.99 a year, which is well worth it if you consider hosting and storage fees.

2. Magntize

Magnetize has a wonderful UI for building your website, and helps you every step of the way, everything is on one page with tabs that switch seamlessly, setting up your site takes just minutes which is a big plus.

One of the things that sets Magnetize apart from a lot of other business card creation startups is their themes, there is no other word to describe them except gorgeous. They also offer a pro account, but it is a little steeper in price but does include a few other features like a custom domain, custom email forwarding for your domain, premium themes to just name a few. All of this is for $9 a month which is a little high, but reasonable for the slickness of their themes.

3. Dooid

Dooid probably is the least appealing option for people wanting a free account, the free account is very limited (only one free customizable theme and a few add ons) and has basically the least options for customizations out of the above two startups. If you are a pro user, which costs $2.99 a month if you are a yearly subscriber and $3.99 a month if you are a monthly subscriber, you have many more options in terms of themes (5 more) and access to more of their very cool and original add ons.

Dooid is the only one out of the three business card options that has an iPhone app, which is included in the pro subscription, this iPhone app can be used to update your information on the go and allows you to easily send your Dooid site and contact info via email.

4. Chi.mp

Chi.mp is a particularly unique online business card option. They have a deal with the Northern Marina Islands (who owns the .mp domain) and as long as you’re using the Chi.mp service, the yourname.mp domain is free of charge. Creating your site is very simple after you register your domain, you add all of your services (twitter, flicker etc…) and off you go. On your now personalized website, there’s an activity stream where people can see your most recent posts or statuses on different social sites.

They offer a pro subscription at $20 a year, and it includes email forwarding, domain forwarding and Google apps. The themes are more like backgrounds, offering a variety of different pictures or solid color backgrounds as the backdrop for your website. Chi.mp is a great option for folks wanting their own domain name, and a very original online business card page.

5. E

E, or My Name is E, is sort of like the Bump iPhone app of the online business card world, your online business card profile is a very simple page consisting of just necessary information and your online profiles. The real interesting part of E is in the way that people exchange contact info, both parties need to have an E account and new contacts can either be added via iPhone app or other mobile device.

After adding a new contact, E automatically friends you to the other persons social profiles and gets the whole show moving setting you up for future contact. If any of your E contacts changes their details (a new twitter account, facebook profile etc.) your address book will be updated  automatically.  In terms of themes, E is not really your best bet for expressing your personal style, it does give you an option to customize your background but that’s about it – so if you can’t live without themes and customization, then you probably can live without E.

6. OnePage

OnePage is your barebones online business card profile, it is basically a compiled version of your Linkedin page. OnePage even offers the option to link your Linkedin account to your OnePage profile and using the information on your Linkedin account it will fill in all of the information on your new card.

Again, if your into themes, OnePage is not the best choice, every page has an identical solid dark blue background and there are no option to change it. Maybe in the future if OnePage releases a few more customization options it may appeal to a wider audience. Otherwise OnePage is a dead simple and easy way to showcase your online business card information online.

7. Retaggr

Retaggr is not so much an online business card but more of a showcase of all your contact information, social profiles and other accounts. Retaggr is the all in one tool to help others connect and contact you, with their unique AddMe feature, it’s a synch to add your profiles and let your friend’s friend you on a multitude of social networks and services. Retaggr is also all about allowing you to share your social profile with everyone using their customizable profile widgets, share it on your website or wherever else you like (I am a big fan of inserting into your email signature). The very functional profile page shows feeds from all your recent activity from social networks like Twitter, and RSS feeds from your blog or other status updates.

Retaggr has a premium subscription at $9 a year (free for first 2 months) which allows you to use a custom domain and gives you access to premium themes and much more. One very interesting feature that really sets Retaggr apart from others rests in their widgets for social profiles. They give you the ability to add custom widgets apart from the usual AIM, Digsby or Facebook ones, all you need to do is name the widget and insert the HTML code and it will show up seamlessly on your profile. Retaggr combines your online life and your business life all into one place, and does a heck of a good job doing it.

These startups have been very innovative in the online business card space, and taken the social profile concept and transformed it into something that can be monetised. Who you decide to go with is down to what you’re after. My personal favorite, purely for its aesthetics, Magntize.

This is an old post that has managed to get into our RSS feed – please ignore.

I’m a sucker for good looking sites. I’m an absolute fool for stunning ones. The web application I’m about to introduce you to is stunning.

Magntize, formally known as Nectar, is nothing more than a way for you to create your own online profile kitted with links to your social networking sites, a brief bio, a stream of updates from your other online profiles and a downloadable VCard. Nothing special so far right, dooid does it, card.ly does it and plenty of others do too. What makes this special is the undeniable elegance of the set up, admin and the mindblowing themes you get to play with.

Magntize is beautiful, and if you’re not convinced, take a look at my site, screenshot below too.

What you get for free is a selection of gorgeous themes, the ability to link to your profiles, importing of your stream from various sites, a place for your contact details and a link to download your VCard. Not all that much, but frankly I can’t see what else you’d desperately need.

If you’re willing to pay the $9 a month for premium membership however, you’ll get:

• a Custom Domain
• access to a new selection of premium themes
• a wonderfully designed iPhone version of the site
• CV download functionality
• a personal RSS feed, which is essentially a lifestream feed full of everything you’ve been doing online
• an email address people can reach you on which forwards to your real one maintaining your privacy.

Not too shabby. Although it is $9 a month for a site you could probably cook up yourself if you’re willing to put the time in. That said $108 a year for someone who cares about their image but doesn’t have the necessary coding or design skills is fair. Let’s not forget you get a site a child could edit and should make most visitors drool. It’s reasonable…Far more reasonable than the 15 day trial period, $199 up front then $79/year they were charging back when they were called Nectar.

Try Magnetize out here.