One of the oldest methods of swapping contact details is the humble business card which has been around for years but with the advent of the Internet, smart phones and social media there have to be some more efficient ways for us all to swap our contact details, no?

One of the biggest problems is that we all now have so many social media profiles, most of us have at least a couple of email addresses and at least one phone number which is a lot of information to bring together in one place. With all this in mind we had a look at some of the best services that can go some (they will still be around in physical format for many years to come) way to replacing the business card…

Facebook

Facebook already has a lot of information about us including email addresses and phone numbers etc and it looks as if they are about to roll out a Gmail style inbox for messages meaning we could be connecting with people through facebook a lot more in the future. If you add in the fact that they now have vanity URLs like facebook.com/britneyspears or Facebook.com/joebloggs you will be able to pass on your Facebook URL and connect in an instant. You also need to take into account Facebook apps are becoming more and more popular on mobile devices so the natural progression is that we will be able to access a lot of our contacts through Facebook. The fact that facebook is usually only made up of people you trust will make this an attractive way for people to share their contacts online.

Card.ly

Excellent online service that allows you to add your social profiles like Facebook and Twitter as well as all your normal contacts and even a stream of your latest activity in a simple news feed activity. You can then embed the virtual business card into a webpage or simply send people a link or add the link to email signatures etc.

SpartX

This company provides virtual business cards but also allows you to print them offline. You will also be able to add the business cards to emails and websites and it allows your business card to look the same both offline and online.

Bump
This is an application on the iPhone and will mean both people wanting to connect will need an iPhone but this gives us a glimpse of the future and a world that will no longer require business cards printed on paper.

Moo

Although these are not technically changing the way we use business cards they are still pretty cool as they are half the size (thus saving paper) and will help you to stand out in a crowd with the pretty custom pictures you can save on the back of each one. If we did have to keep real business cards in the future these would be the ones for us!

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