A few weeks ago, TechCrunch’s Jason Kincaid invited an army of tech-savvy hitmen to work on a technology to kill the business card for “once and for all“. I know some of these ruthless killers personally and I can tell you, they’re about ready to hit. When these guys are not working on their brutal murdering techniques, they’re actually great company. Yet I feel I have to stop these fellas and plea for a world that embraces the little paper connectors for “once and for all”.
The discussion on TechCrunch was pretty hefty, vibrations were getting nasty. Arrington chose sides of Kincaid and even posted a picture of the drawer in which he saves all the cards (pretty sight, uh?). Nevertheless, most visitors weren’t too fond of the whole death warrant idea.
Every now and then the Silicon Valley folks need to step out of their Tech bubble and interact with non-Tech folks to understand how the vast majority of the population works.
Look out for Arrington’s article tomorrow, “We need to kill the handshake, Facebook pokes via the iPhone are good enough”.
Really? Kill the business card? That would be really inconvenient for someone who works with consumers who can’t afford an iPhone or any other fancy smartphone, or who aren’t as immersed in this world of tech like we all are.
I don’t really care about what these guys are saying, I love my bubble. And most people who don’t master the new technologies but are in fact interesting don’t even have a business card. No, I need the business cards for other reasons. Karen from hyperart made an excellent point. She noted that cards are perfect for self-expression:
This is like saying canvas has to die because people can just photoshop.
She’s right! You know, I was going through my Web 2.0 Expo New York cards collection when I realized that the self-expression part is the very reason I care so much about the business card. Then I remembered the TechCrunch discussion and started reading the comments. I’m glad Karen and a few others think about it the same way.
Just look at these three great cards I got last week:
Sorry for the sorry quality, but I hope you get the idea. Here’s why I dig these cards so much:
- The one in the top left was given to me by Jerri Chou from alldaybuffet, a social innovation brand for the creative mavericks. The line “You are connected to everything. Love accordingly” fits that company mission perfectly. The back of the card shows her email address in handwriting.
- Brian Shaler has just put his name on his card. “I want people to Google me”, he told me at the TechSet NYC party. I can imagine, since this flash developer has some great stuff going on online
- The card of this startup junkie reads “Hey, how awesome, we just met. my name is Andrew Hyde (we should keep in touch)” and depicts a great cartoon of his face. Enough said.
Business cards are here to stay, they’re great tools for self-expression during first impressions. And don’t you dare going green on me.
(By the way, can somebody explain me how you NOT kill for once and for all?)
thanks, appreciate it Steven! :)
is it just me or is the next web team on steroids, the pace and quality of posts recently is second to none.
have you even read the post before you plugged your company?
There it is again. SV techies usually believe that the world starts and end between Facebook and Google and only contains the startups and bloggers in between.
Business cards are here to stay. Not everyone will go about shaking their Iphone to transfer data. Sending SMS to exchange contact is good, great, whatever, but that does not mean we will throw away our business cards.
Should we also throw away our desktop since we have laptops? And now that we have the Iphone, should we also throw away our laptops?
In the meantime if anyone wants to get business cards feel free to check http://cardsfreebusiness.com
I read it. A great place to print business cards http://www.premiumcards.net Can we print for you?
Off course I have, and the plug was highly relevant. But the remark was not about you. It was about the bloggers who claim that business cards are dead just because they can send a SMS and swap contact info.
I have developed mobile applications that use bluetooth to exchange contact information and I know that although these sort of apps are great, they will not stop people from printing cards.
Ernst:
I’m the CEO of the company profiled in the TechCrunch article you mentioned: rmbrME. Thanks for the followup article and commentary.
I did want to say that we’re not at all out to kill the business card with our mobile-to-mobile solution for contact exchange. To the contrary: the business card has an important purpose in the world, and is – frankly – unlikely to be mortally wounded by a small startup like ours.
But the overall trend is unmistakable. We are shifting to a world of increased interactivity (and quality) on our mobile devices. Soon, everyone we know will be using a smartphone of one kind or another (if they’re not already). And when this subtle shift in technology comes to pass, our behaviors will surely change.
For example, until the carriers unified the text messaging gateway – that is, you didn’t need to know anything other than the mobile number of the recipient to send a text – which only happened 6-7 years ago, text messaging in the US was a dark art. Today, everyone texts, and other forms of self-expression (like phone calls) are imperiled while new forms like Twitter, bubble to the surface.
We hope to achieve the same (if humbler) goal with the business card – connecting users simply, easily, and socially using the devices they already have.
Thanks again!
-Gabe
I just got a free txt msg virtual business card keyword with unlimited usage from a company called Sundrop Systems http://www.sundropsystems.com/mytxtra/Bcard/