I agree on the Cloud Contacts recommendation. I just had them scan more than 4,000 cards for me and it freaking rocks to have them all in a database. Sorry, nothing beats the ubiquity of business cards. If you're going to use Business Cards, make sure you follow the best practices. I wrote that up here: http://scobleizer.com/2006... - Robert Scoble from FriendFeed MT Plugin

@scobleizer: "2) Make sure your card can be scanned. I bought a business card scanner so that I could get my computers into computer form." Heh. - wyclif

Thanks for leaving your comments, Robert! =) I agree that biz cards are ubiquitous, but they're so... icky? cheesy? wasteful? forgettable? At shows, I usually just wait to meet the really interesting people I actually WANT to follow up with, then I get their Twitter handle, follow them from my mobile, and let the convo go on from their. I guess that method only works b/c I'm particular about who I follow, tho. ;) Hi fives and see you around! - Jolie O'Dell

I keep seeing tons of different sites popping up online trying to replace business cards. Of course this doesn't work right now since everyone uses one of the 11ty billion different systems. It'll be nice once some format widely accepted pops up for transferring between something like smart phones. Virtual Rolodex with cards sorted by meeting times. - Dean Clark

Where's Poken? :-) - Paul Papadimitriou

Poken is a toy compared to these devices, especially at the open software services level. The best comparison I have heard (mentioned at the jury deliberations when mynameise won the startup event at the NextWeb) was: if poken is myspace then E is linkedin. - Werner Vogels

@ Werner, Is E technically superior in some way or is it just the casing that you don't like? - KyleHase

at the hardware level the E devices are indeed much easier to connect based on the specific radio technologies that they use. But what impresses me more is their vision around software/cloud infrastructure that makes sharing of these kinds of information independent of the specific devices.Where this service can evolved and be useful to all of us even if a year from now we have different devices. - Werner Vogels

BTW: for easy sharing of social networking informatie, here is my public business E-Card http://www.mynameise.com/werner - Werner Vogels

Werner, mine is here: http://www.google.com/profile... :-) - Robert Scoble

Robert, you'll have to admit, mine looks a lot cooler. Which should appeal to you apple design aficionado's Plus I have the choice out of different cards that I can exchange, e.g. business vs leisure. - Werner Vogels

You guys missed retaggr: http://www.retaggr.com/page... - Aad 't Hart

Just what I need: Another device. The right way to do this is a voice print. Just say your name to your new friend's phone, that's it. Imagine OpenID/FF/FB/Plaxo/Gmail storing your voice print as part of your ID. You plug in, upload the new voice prints of your new friends and then get all the contact info needed. You could also add the words "friend", "business", "Facebook" or whatever after your voice print, to indicate the level of intimacy permission you were giving. Of course, if you wanted to avoid giving someone your details, you'd have to fake your name or talk in a scratchy voice instead of giving a phony phone number. - Rebecca Rachmany

I hate business cards and love the suggestions in this conversation. I am checking out BeamMe. Thanks! - Jill Howard Allen

Thanks for the comments, everyone! We’re glad to see other companies moving into this space; it validates that the problem we’re all trying to solve is a real one and that we can do some real good by addressing it. As you may have seen in our Google Tech Talk, Poken too has a very open philosophy and Poken too envisions a world in which people can share identities regardless of device or connectivity status. However, we have seen many good ideas fail to gain critical mass because they focused so much on the technology and not enough on the users. On paper they were great solutions but they just never really caught on. We’ve tried to take the opposite approach and provide something that, above-all, delights and serves our users. Is it perfect? Not yet. Does it serve ALL possible users out there? Of course not (Check out our user breakdown: http://twitpic.com/5lzs2). But we have learned a lot from the users of the hundreds of thousands of our devices in 30+ countries and we are incorporating every bit of it into our next generation (this summer), which includes business- and event-oriented products, mobile access, and better web services. Open standards and cool technology will always be part of our platform, but we believe that only by really focusing on the needs of users will any solution ever gain enough momentum to change the way we share identities in the real world. - Bryan Guido Hassin

This is very helpful on business cards! - Sheryl Brown