What is business card? What is e-card?

Answer 1

Business cards are shared during formal introductions as a convenience and a memory aid. A business card typically includes the giver's name, company affiliation (usually with a logo) and contact information such as street addresses, telephone number(s) and/or e-mail addresses. Traditionally many cards were simple black text on white stock; today a professional business card will sometimes include one or more aspects of striking visual design.

Business cards are frequently used during sales calls (visits) to provide potential customers with a means to contact the business or representative of the business.

Contents [hide]
1 History
2 Current usage
3 Collecting
4 Dimensions
5 In print
6 Other formats
7 See also
8 External links



[edit]
History

Visiting card of Johann van Beethoven, Brother of Ludwig van BeethovenBusiness cards evolved from a fusion of traditional trade cards and visiting cards.

Visiting cards (also known as calling cards) first appeared in China in the 15th century, and in Europe in the 17th century. The footmen of aristocrats and of royalty would deliver these first European visiting cards to the servants of their prospective hosts solemnly introducing their arrival.

Visiting cards became an indispensable tool of etiquette, with sophisticated rules governing their use. The aristocracies of North America and the rest of Europe adopted the practice from French and English etiquette.

Visiting cards included refined engraved ornaments and fantastic coats of arms. The visiting cards served as tangible evidence of the meeting of social obligations. The stack of cards in the card tray in the hall was a handy catalog of exactly who had called and whose calls one should reciprocate. They also provided a streamlined letter of introduction.

With the passage of time, visiting cards became an essential accessory to any 19th-century upper or middle class lady or gentleman. Visiting cards were not generally used among country folk or the working classes.

Trade cards first became popular at the beginning of the 17th century in London. These functioned as advertising and also as maps, directing the public to merchants' stores, as no formal street address numbering system existed at the time.

Businesses used their cards as marks of distinction and thus introduced the first modifications in their design. Later, as the growing demand for the cards boosted the development of color printing, more sophisticated card designs appeared, making the cards works of art.

The trend toward fanciful trade cards was balanced by the pragmatic need of a growing group of private entrepreneurs who had a constant need to exchange contact information. These users often started to print out their own cheaper business cards.

[edit]
Current usage
The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view.
Please improve the article or discuss the issue on the talk page.
With the economic leveling of the 20th century, and the wane of social formality, the rigid distinction between trade cards and visiting cards slowly faded except in the highest socio-economic classes.

In the highest socio-economic classes, there remains even today a rigid distinction between business cards and visiting cards. In such social circles, it is still considered to be in very poor taste to use a business card when making a social call. A business card, left with the servants, could imply that you had called on business.[citation needed]

For the rest of the world, the exchange of business cards has become common even for social introductions. Some people carry "personal" business cards which contain only personal contact information and have no relation to their employer or business.[citation needed]

[edit]
Collecting
There are a small number of people who collect business cards.

[edit]
Dimensions
The international standard size specified by ISO 7810 ID-1, the same dimensions as credit cards, is widely used:

85.60 × 53.98 mm (3.370 × 2.125 in)
In the United States the following size is common; however many other sizes are seen as well:

3.5 × 2 in (89 × 51 mm)
In Japan, the traditional yongō paper size is in common use:

91 × 55 mm
[edit]
In print
High quality business cards without full-color photographs are normally printed using spot colors on sheetfed offset printing presses. Some companies have gone so far as to trademark their spot colors (examples are UPS brown, Los Angeles Lakers' purple, and Tide's orange). If a business card logo is a single color and the type is another color, the process is considered two color. More spot colors can be added depending on the needs of the card.

To simulate the "raised-print" effect of printing with engraved plates, a less-expensive process called thermography was developed that uses the application of a plastic powder, which adheres to the wet ink. The cards are then passed through a heating unit, which melts the plastic onto the card.

Full color cards, or cards that use many colors, are printed on sheetfed presses as well; however, they use the CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) four-color printing process. Screens of each color overprinted on one another create a wide gamut of color. The downside to this printing method is that screened colors if examined closely will reveal tiny dots, whereas spot color cards are printed solid in most cases. Spot colors should be used for simple cards with line art.

Some terminology in reference to full color printing:

4/0 - Full Color Front / No Back
4/1 - Full Color Front / Black & White Back
4/4 - Full Color Front / Full Color Back
These names are pronounced as "four over zero" or "four over four."

A business card can also be coated with a UV glossy coat. The coat is applied just like another ink using an additional unit on a sheetfed press. That being said, UV coats can also be applied as a spot coating -- meaning areas can be coated, and other areas can be left uncoated. This creates additional design potential.

When cards are designed, they are given bleeds if color extends to the edge of the finished cut size. (A bleed is the extension of printed lines or colors beyond the line where the paper it is printed on will be cut.) This is to help ensure that the paper will cut without white edges due to paper shifting. Paper shifting does occur on a press from time to time, and can be up to 1/8" or more. This will result in a nasty white line going down one (or more) of the sides. Bleeds are typically an extra 1/8 to 1/4 in to all sides of the card.

Bleed Size: 3.75 x 2.25 in (1/8" bleeds) (95.25 by 57.15 mm)
Cut Size: 3.5 x 2 in (89 by 51 mm)
[edit]
Other formats

Compact Disc Business CardRecent technological advances have made CD-ROM "business cards" possible which can hold about 35 to 100 MB of data. These cards may be square, round or oblong but are approximately the same size as a conventional business card. CD business cards are designed to fit within the 80 mm tray of a computer's CD-ROM drive. They are playable in most computer CD drives. Despite the ability to include dynamic presentations and a great deal of data, these cards are not in common use.

Most handheld computers have the ability to "beam" (send through infra-red communication) an electronic business card, eliminating the need for the recipient to re-key the contact information. This is also done via SMS on most mobile telephones.

[edit]
See also
vCard
meishi
QSL card
[edit]
External links
Business Card Collecting - The International Business Card Collectors formed in 1999, utilize the Internet for easy, fast, and economical communication and networking.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_card"
Categories: Limited geographic scope | Articles with unsourced statements | Stationery | Ephemera | Paper products

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An E-card is a postcard, sent by means of the Internet, usually through e-mail.

A users sending an e-card to a person would select a pre-written card style with image and message, and would add their own personal message, and specify the recipient's e-mail address. On sending the card, the recipient would receive an e-mail with a link to the e-card provider's webpage, and this link would go to the e-card as a webpage, with the sender's personal message and card. Note that the actual card is not usually sent through the e-mail, but only a link to the card hosted as a website.

There are five common types of visual E-Cards. "Flash Animated" which use Macromedia's "Flash" software, "Postcards" which use static (non-moving) images, "Animated" cards which are similar to Postcards yet may have some minor repetative movement, JavaScript cards which typically combine Postcard images with some kind of JavaScript-based animation, and most recently Talking greeting cards.

Flash Animated cards are typically the most advanced and popular cards. Flash Animated cards are typically used to create a full animated effect, similar to an animated cartoon. They can also be interactive, asking the viewer to perform an action or press a button.

Postcards are the oldest form of E-Cards and are still popular. They typically show more artistic or nature images such as animals, mountains, sunsets, people, or other scenic scenes.

Contents [hide]
1 History
2 Security
3 See also
4 References
5 External links



[edit]
History
Around 1996, E-Cards became a popular web feature that was easy for webmasters to offer at a low cost. It was around the same time that dedicated E-card web sites emerged. E-cards were also added to large portals like MSN and AOL. E-Cards were also added to many corporate web sites (as part of a friendly PR, branding, community building strategy) and also as a lead generation tool.

Excite@Home bought the web site Blue Mountain Arts (which operate bluemountain.com, an e-Card site) for $780M in October 1999 (which represent a price of $71 per unique monthly user). The transaction has been referenced by CNN and Business 2.0 as evidence of the Dot-com bubble. On September 13, 2001, three weeks before filining for Bankruptcy on October 1, 2001, Excite@Home sold BlueMountain.com for $35M, or $3.23 per unique monthly user. The web site BlueMountain.com remains a large web site, primarily focused on E-Cards. Other large E-card web sites include, Hallmark.com, eGreetings.com, American Greetings, and 123Greetings.com.

Originally, most E-Cards were free. While free greeting cards are still the most prevalent and popular, some sites charge for either all e-cards or special premium e-cards.

[edit]
Security
Since the e-card company knows the e-mail address of the recipient and often also the sender, and whether the recipient reads the card, spammers sometimes use E-Cards for finding active e-mail addresses.

Sending an e-card to a given recipient invariably involves giving that recipient's email address to the e-card service -- a third party. As with other third-party email services (such as mailing-list companies), the operator has the chance to misuse this address. One example of misuse is if the e-card service sends advertisements to the recipient's address. Under anti-spam rules used by major ISPs, such advertisements would be spam, since the recipient never asked ("opted in") to receive them. [1] The e-card sender as well as the service could be held responsible for the act of spamming, since while the service sent the spam, the e-card sender provided the address.

In some cases, it may be illegal for an organization or business to use an e-card service to send greetings to its customers. For instance, data privacy laws may forbid a business from disclosing information about customers to a third party -- including names and email addresses.

[edit]
See also
Cardmaking
Greeting cards
E-mail
Hallmark Cards
[edit]
References
http://money.cnn.com/2005/12/23/technology/eyeballs_biz20_122305/
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2001/09/10/daily70.html
[edit]
External links
E-greetings at the Open Directory Project
Ecards at the Yahoo! Directory
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-card"
Categories: Stationery | Ephemera | E-mail

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This page was last modified 15:51, 6 August 2006. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details.)
Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

hope this helps

Answer 2

A business card is a card (usually made from paper) which business people use to develop a network. It has the persons name, the business name and logo, address and telephone number of the business, occupation and phone number of the employee issuing the card. Business cards are issued to business clients etc. See some samples at the link below.

http://images.google.com.jm/images?q=business+card+sample&hl=en&btnG=Search+Images

An e-card is an electronic card that is sent like an e-mail to your computer and it is used for birthdays and other holidays and celebrations. See link below for some e-cards.

http://www.care2.com/send/categories

Hope I helped !

Answer 3

Many of the "e" are just the same concept as the non "e". Email for example is the electronic version of the snail or postal mail. The more important question is why? The natural follow question is "how" can the "e" version do a better job that the non "e". The short answer is that the "e" version transcends time, place and and even the nature of the person receiving i.e. empowers the end user.

Answer 4

Business Card is a small card printed with one's name, professional occupation, company position, business address, and other contact information.

Answer 5

Buisness card's are name card's E- cards are electronic card in which you can see card's moving with stories and as like cartoon's you watch on Television they move and talk so just like that. They are electronic greeting card's of all occasion. Open your mail box click e- cards and Enjoy!

Answer 6

Business card is name card. E-card means electronic card. You view it on computer or electronic devices.

Answer 7

business card is nothing but visiting card made of paper,
e card can be sent via internet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E%2Dcard