Net Q & A

Question of the Month: August 2000

Answer

Electronic business cards, known as vCards, are an interesting extension to conventional e-mail signature blocks. If you have compatible software (including Lotus Organizer 5.0 and higher or  Outlook 98/2000), you can save contact information about yourself in a standard file format that uses the extension .vcf. This makes it easy to import into the address books of compatible software. More and more new software recognizes and can use vCards. 

The icon at left represents a vCard.

 Note that since vCards are all text, they cannot transmit a computer virus in an "infectious" form.

Why should lawyers care about vCards? 

They are a marketing tool that is growing in importance as more and more people come to use PIMs.

It is logical to include vCards on law firm web sites, to make it easier for potential clients who use PIMs to get in touch with you. If you try this, tell your webmaster to configure the server to recognize files ending in .vcs as a MIME type. This will allow them to be opened automatically when downloaded by someone using a web browser.

TIP: If your web site is hosted on a Unix server, do not include blank spaces in the vCard name. This causes problems. Including underscores instead of blank spaces in the name is advisable.

More information is available from the Internet Mail Consortium.

Jerry Lawson

This page last revised: August 1, 2000.