Business Cards the Latest Internet Casualty

Hugh Pickens writes "Chalk up another looming casualty of the Internet age: business cards. Ubiquitous as pinstripes, the 2-by-3.5-inch pieces of card stock have long been a staple in executive briefcases. But now, writes Matt Stevens, young and Web-savvy people who are accustomed to connecting digitally, see business cards as irrelevant, wasteful — and just plain lame. 'When I go into a meeting and there are five bankers across the table, they all hand me business cards and they all end up in a pile, in a shoe box somewhere,' says Diego Berdakin, the founder of BeachMint, a fast-growing e-commerce site that has raised $75 million from investors without ever bothering to print a card. 'If someone comes in to meet me, we've already been connected through email, so it really doesn't feel like a necessity in my life.' Some 77 million smartphone users have downloaded the Bump app, which allows them to bump their phones together and instantly exchange contact information. Others carry a personalized quick-response code that smartphones can scan like a hyperlink. At 36, Ralph Barbagallo is near the cutoff for Generation Y but despises business cards all the same. Barbagallo says he goes to three major conferences a year and has to distribute paper cards, but lugging and exchanging fistfuls of them is a pain and it's hard to remember who is who. 'When they run out this time, I'm not printing any more,' says Barbagallo. 'They need to die somehow.'"

Comments

Re:I want cards with those scanner codes embedded

[iamhassi]

I want to set up a business card with one of those digicodes on the back that can be scanned by a smartphone, such as appear on YouTube VEVO broadcasts.

Realistically, business cards are for giving people your contact info, and nothing more. I never give business cards to people who already have my contact info, but they're invaluable for shows and conferences where they don't have your contact info.

Plus they're handy for dropping in to those "win a meal" restaurant promotion draws. :)

Business cards are about as useful as books or magazines: they're instantly available, need no electricity, can be passed from person to person, etc. You can run into someone in an elevator and during your 20 second pitch hand them a card. Not everyone's going to say "Oh let me get out my smartphone and start the QR code app and scan the QR code, etc". Maybe they don't have time for you. Maybe they're already using their phone (very likely). Maybe they only half heard you because they have something else on their mind. Whatever the reason, business cards are useful.

I still have IT internet-savvy entrepreneur .com types ask for business cards. They're not dead.

Usually I hang on to cards I'm handed until I have a few seconds to scan the QR code. If there isn't a code I take a photo of the card with the smartphone and toss the card.

But thank you for this article, reminded me I should see if there's "an app for that", some sort of app that can scan a business card and add them to my contacts. Quick google search lead me to this page with the top 10 iPhone business card scanning apps available. I'll try some of the free versions and see which works best.