You can send a greeting card with your own videos in them!!! Soooo many possibilities! Send a birthday card and show up “in person” to deliver your message with a video. Or if you don’t want to create your own videos, you can download any appropriate YouTube video. Thank someone for a special gift. Businesses can use videos for welcoming, training, or demonstrating a product or service. Real estate agents are using QR Codes to offer video tours of homes they are listing.
This new cutting-edge technology is called a QR Code. QR stands for Quick Response. A QR Code is basically a “bar code” that can be scanned with a smartphone to play a video message.
How to use this new technology?
CREATE A VIDEO
1. In addition to using a video camera, most computers have a webcam on them and you can simply sit at your desk and record something and save it (where you can find it … smile). Smartphones and cameras also have video capability. Or, grab something off of YouTube that is already recorded.
2. If you don’t have a YouTube account, create one by going to www.YouTube.com. It’s free and super easy to use. Click on Upload to get your video into your YouTube account. Name your video, add a description, and save it as public (If you want the world to have access to your video, keep it public. Otherwise, you can edit the video and make it “unlisted” so only the card recipient will be able to view your video message). YouTube will generate a URL for your video. Copy the URL so you can paste it into a screen in the process described below.
CREATE A CARD WITH A VIDEO
1. Go to your Main Menu and click on Pictures, then UPLOAD MORE PICTURES. At the bottom of the screen where you would generally “Browse” for your photos to add, you’ll find a place to paste your “YouTube URL.” Paste the URL in the box and click GENERATE.
2. Select the card you want to send from the Card Catalog or go to CREATE A CUSTOM PICTURE PLUS CARD and create a card. A QR code is a graphic so there will be no additional cost, if you’re adding it to a photo card. If you are adding it to a Card Catalog card, it will cost an additional point (just like adding a photo). One of the “photos” you will see will be the QR Code you just generated. If you hover your mouse over it, you will see a thumbnail graphic of the video and also the description name that you created.
Organizing suggestion: Create an album of QR codes so you can easily find them later.
3. Go to Pics and drag your QR Code into the card. You can size it however you want. Just be sure that you don’t cover up any of the QR Code with anything else, or it will not be read properly when it is scanned with a smartphone.
4. Go to Elements and look under VIDEO CARD ELEMENTS. Choose the one you like best. Some have detailed instructions for the card recipient and some are really basic (for example: upload a QR Reader, start the QR Reader app, scan the code). Or, just add a Blank Text Box and add your own instructions.
READ THE QR CODE
In order to scan a QR Code, go to your App Store (iPhone) or Marketplace on your smartphone and do a search for “QR Code Reader.” You must load a free App on your smartphone so it can scan the code and play the video. Here are a few apps to choose from. Suggested apps:
- Barcode Reader
- iNigma (for iPhone)
- QR Droid (for Android)
Once you have the App on your phone, open the app, hover your phone camera lens over the code and watch it read the code. The video will load. You may have to tell your smartphone to read from YouTube.
[Video of “Dunedin Chamber Golf Tournament (to be included in “Create A Card” – Creating a Video Card) - http://youtu.be/nqid8_jnHbY]
[Video of Shauna’s Birthday” (to be included in “Create A Card” – Creating a Video Card) - http://youtu.be/sOLLXCqMuuQ]
[Example of a QR Code]
