10 Reasons Business Cards Need a Social Network

While there are many social networks and professional networking tools that have proliferated over the past ten years, business cards remain to be effectively disrupted by technology.  A business card unifies contact and other information into a condensed, easily shared format.  With business cards being such an important point of connection, it is surprising that they have not yet resulted in a social network independent from other popular platforms, designed solely for exchanging bite-sized pieces of contact information.

10 Reasons Business Cards Need Their Own Social Network:

  1. No Delay:  With an online business card there is no waiting for printing and shipping.  It is immediately available for use.
  2. Easy to Update:  Information on online business cards can be updated instantly, rather than having to order new business cards or cross outdated fields.
  3. Free:  Online business cards are easily made for free- no printing and shipping fees.
  4. Eco-friendly:  Using an online business card saves trees and prevents waste!
  5. Organization:  It is much easier to create and maintain an online rolodex than it is to manage a physical one.
  6. Accessibility:  An online business card can be accessed from any device with an internet connection anywhere.
  7. Can’t Be Lost:  An online business card cannot fall out of your wallet, be left in a drawer, or become damaged by water.  Your information is safely stored in the cloud.
  8. Context:  It is easy to build a feature that enables users to add cards to lists, such as ‘Globe Conference 2013’ and add memos like ‘Email mid-next week about stock options’ .  This helps people keep their networking in context.
  9. Easy to share:  You can’t tweet, embed, or link to a paper business card.
  10. Direct: An online business card provides a direct connection between the viewer and any links on card.  Rather than typing a full URL it is as simple as clicking or tapping to reach one’s Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn page.

Applications:  An online business card is simply a condensed format for sharing contact and other social information.  This need not be limited to business, it could also be used for sharing online presence and contact info for personal use, events, or topics.Due to the broad number of ways that an online business card could actually be used, we decided to call them social cards rather than business cards.  A social card is just a condensed, simple way to share contact information and online presence.  We have designed social cards to act as a stepping stone between the viewer and the information fields shared within the card.  Our goal is to direct people into further interaction rather than act as a static landing page, so we’ve kept it simple and consistent.