Some people will notice the links to my .vcf file, or My VCF. One might wonder what it is, and how does it work? In this blog posting, I will detail what a .vcf is, and how to best use it. With that in mind, I would hope that you would consider providing a .vcf file, if only to a few people. Me personally, I provide my .vcf file to anyone that would want it. I would recommend right away to use your smartphone when going to the .vcf file. This will be explained later in this posting.
What is a VCF?
VCF stands for Virtual Card File. One could think of this as a digital version of a business/contact card. A VCF can also be call a VCard. In the case of my VCard, you would have my home and cellular phone number. You will also have my email address, and web address. In addition, you would have a condensed version of my mailing address. Last, you will get my name, photo, and date of birth. There are other options you can add to this, and there is no obligation to provide as much detail as I do. For example, if I didn’t use a Private MailBox service, I wouldn’t provide my mailing address. The VCard is a digital file that would likely sit on your computer, and you can (and should) upload it to your website. The idea is a smartphone (and KaiOS phones with some limitations) will go to the link of the VCard, and the VCard will download to the phone. In the case of iPhones, the contact manager will come up showing all of the information. You can then just add the contact and no typing (and therefore no mistakes) in the contact card. A Pixel phone will download the file, and then ask if you would wish to add the contact. You don’t get to see the information. In either case, you would have a new contact added to your contact manager of your phone, and there is no mistakes from the person downloading the file.
Creating Your VCard?
So now you see the benefits of a VCard. So now you want one. You want to make it easier for other people to add your contact information, and with a VCard, that can happen. If you can use a local program on your computer to create a VCard, then great! I would recommend that you do that. It would be easier to manage and make changes. If you can’t create one on your computer, then you would need to go to a website to create the card. The one I found to be best is vCard Maker. You can go to https://fsp.to/vcard which will redirect you to the appropriate site. From there, you would be able to enter the information you would want to provide. You can create as many as you would want, but I would recommend renaming the card before you create an additional one. When I had international numbers, I would give the file name something I can relate to. For example, I had a UK number – the VCard with the UK number in it was uk.vcf whereas my US version of my VCard is us.vcf. Make sure all of the information is correct before you download the file. If not, you may have to do it all over again. If you were to change your information, you would want to come back to that site, and create a new VCard. Once you input all of the information you want to provide, select the Generate button. The site will send you a file for you to download. If you are using a web-based OS (such as Chrome OS), then you may or may not be able to download. If you can not download files to your computer, you would need to use another computer. There has to be a way to get the file to your computer. Any other OS I know of will allow you to download the file, and it will likely be in your Download folder.
Now What?
You know what a VCard is, and how to create one. Now how do you get it out to the public to use it? There is no point in creating a VCard if nobody can get it. I am assuming you don’t want to spend money. With that in mind, you would want to find a free website service provider. I don’t know of any free site providers, but I would assume there are some even if ad driven. You would want a site service provider that would allow you to FTP or offer to upload files to the site. If you already have a website that you use for other things, you can also FTP the VCard to that site. I would recommend something simple, and easier to type. If your website is a long domain name, then I would suggest to use one of your free Bit.ly redirect links to redirect the visitor to your .vcf. I don’t use Bit.ly, so I can’t walk you through it, but I would suggest a as recognizable URL link as possible. If you have a short domain name, you should be able to just provide that URL. In my case, my VCard is located at https://fsp.ws/us.vcf. As you can see, that URL is easy to type, and recognize. Obviously in my case, I pay for a short domain name, and pay for hosting. This option is about $200 a year, but as you can see, I use this domain for other roles too, so it is not worth $200 to just host my single VCard.
Promoting Your .vcf
OK, now you got your VCard, and it is uploaded to your website. Now what? Well, you would want to promote your VCard through as many channels as possible. If you are going to create new contact cards soon, then providing a link to your VCard can be done there. You could also provide your VCard link in the signature of your emails. If you have social networking profiles, you can provide the VCard through those channels. Just about anywhere you can promote a link, you can promote your VCard Address. If you want the VCard only for select people, then obviously, you won’t be promoting your VCard’s location on the Internet. You would still want it as short as possible for fewer chances of mistakes.
An Alternative
If providing a VCard is not an option for you, but you still want the functionality, then you would want to create a QR code version of the VCard. With that being said, I would recommend that you get contact cards so you can print the QR code directly on the back of a card (making the front with the same information). This option might be limited since it is a graphic one has to connect with. If you could upload a QR code image, then you should be able to upload a .vcf. In my opinion, a VCard file is much more easier.
Very informative!