Earlier this week, the marketing department at my office sent out the standard year end email this week announcing they would be ordering stationary for 2010, and asking if anyone needed additional business cards ordered.
Then last night, at an event for Pittsburgh Young Professionals I met a few people and we exchanged business cards.
Maybe its the fact that it’s almost 2010, or my eternal fear of technology passing me by, but it seems to me that it’s time to retire the paper business card. Think about it. The cards I exchanged last night lasted only to this morning. Once I went to work, I added the contacts to our database, synced it with my cell phone, and searched for them on Linkedin. Then, they were thrown away.
For about a month I’ve been trying out a few other options, and think we may be close to replacing the business card. The first is called Bump, and is available as an iPhone app.
The program works by allowing you to trade your contact information with anyone else who also has the app on their iPhone. You can choose to transfer multiple phone numbers, your email address, website company information and even a photo. Or, if you prefer, just your name and number. The obvious downfall is that the person you meet needs to have an iPhone with the app already installed. Can’t imagine it would make much sense to download the app, and set it up 2 minutes after meeting someone! Take a look at their YouTube video to see it in action:
The second replacement tool I’ve been testing is call Contxts and only requires the person you met to have a cell phone and the ability to text. You can set it up easily online, or using your phone. All the person has to do to receive your contact information is to text the name you set it up under to 50500. To receive my card, just text dunkin to 50500. It doesn’t offer as much information as Bump. You can include your name, title, and company, and whatever information you can fit in under 140 characters. It’s just simple enough to work.
Clearly neither of these tools are used widely enough to truly replace the business card. But that day just might be coming.
Are you using either of these tools?
Something different?
Can you ever imagine not exchanging cards but zapping information to someones cell phone, or whatever comes next?
photo by bargainmoose and joe shlabotnik
