Physical Web - Business Card's End?

Last week I briefly mentioned an Android phone could be configured to broadcast a Physical Web URL beacon. Technically this is done by programming the Bluetooth controller chip to periodically advertise a Service UUID and a Service Data PDUs according to the Eddystone format.

Practically, today this can be done with a help of the Beacon Toy app. To receive the beacons, either on Android or iOS, Chrome Browser v49 (or later) must be installed, with the Physical Web option enabled under Privacy settings.

Physical Web supports only https:// URLs and they cannot exceed 17 characters (with some encoding), so generally the links should be short, or a URL shortener (such as https://goo.gl) should be used. Proper http forwarding is supported, but some services (such as LinkedIn) make tricks rendering their shortcuts incompatible with Physical Web (hey, LinkedIn, this is your wakeup call!).

So with the Beacon Toy it is just a few clicks to have your URL of choice set up as a Physical Web beacon. And you can have more than one, with freedom to start / stop any of them anytime. Beaconing does not have visible impact on a battery (just remember to turn off the scanner on the first tab of the app, as this one may drain the juice pretty quickly).

You end up broadcasting a link (links) of your choice around you: an aura of context that goes with you and others may pick it up. Experimentally I've found it nicely replaces paper business cards. It is probably the first time ever when business cards can be replaced with a completely open and cross-platform standard: a URL to personal profile. You beacon it and the other party can magically click on it.

Physical Web is still in its early stages and there will be many scenarios, but I find beaconing the personal context very interesting, intriguing and useful. As a sender you completely control it. As a receiver it opens a whole lot of discovery opportunities. Think about public places such as conference venues, public transport and more. It is not a big stretch to imagine Facebook and other social services adopting this rather quickly too. Or even becoming a native feature of the Android OS. Personal beacons are a start of something really big, with so many options to explore, that it's becoming almost impossible now to envision all scenarios that will eventually come out. Go and try it yourself!