vCard

A file format standard for electronic business cards. vCards are often attached to e-mail messages, but can be exchanged in other ways, such as Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), on the World Wide Web, instant messaging or through QR code.

A vCard format describes personal information that's typically found on a business card, for example: name, address, telephone number, and e-mail address. A vCalendar format describes calendar and task information, such as the subject of a meeting, the list of invitees, and the date and time.

The vCard specification is managed by the Internet Mail Consortium (IMC) so that electronic business cards can be used to exchange personal information across multiple networks and applications. vCard has been submitted to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standards body as a proposed Internet standard. e-mail programs support vCard and vCalendar and have preferences a user can set to establish and send vCard information with each outgoing e-mail. vCard can then be used to build an address book. E-mail programs that don't support vCard handle it as an ordinary attachment.

Historical perspective: vCard is one of two data interchange formats developed by Versit, an industry consortium, for the convergence of communications and computing (the other format is vCalendar).