[rhizome]

People who like business cards, use business cards. I think in the future "intentional identity communication" will be moot, where people will either know who you are already, or know how to find you (FB, LinkedIn, Ravelry, etc.). If all you really need is a name and a saved contact, I can see people getting used to not carrying and exchanging stuff. "Back in olden times, your 'wallet' had like a quarter-inch of these business cards, both other peoples' and yours to hand out. Yes, we had back problems."

[ivanb]

I imagine a ubiquitous feature in every business smartphone that just broadcasts your vCard to nearby smartphones if you want to be contacted. Just something more comfortable than current Bluetooth vCard sharing. I say a "feature" because I think that there is no monetization opportunity in this idea. It would only look good as a standard feature.

[rhizome]

VCard is still on the "intentional transmission" side of things. What I'm talking about is the question, "why have a discrete identity blob to hand out (physically or digitally) when your identity is out there and easy to find with the right proximity. "Proximity" being measured by social distance.

If I meet you someplace and we're talking like "I'm rhizome from HN," you can then click on my name when you get home (or from your phone) and get a means of communicating further with me. The goal of business cards isn't really just to collect pieces of paper, it's to have a reference by which to enable further interactions. Those references are becoming more and more ephemeral, and more and more ubiquitous.

[dinkumthinkum]

You really think so? There's like billions of people out there. hmm

[rhizome]

To be sure, the change that I'm talking about is evolutionary, not revolutionary.