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DropCard Aims To Make Business Cards Obsolete
DropCard is a new startup that’s part of the DreamIT Ventures program in Philly. The basic pitch is that DropCard replaces the need to exchange business cards because cards go lost and aren’t interactive.
Here’s how the service works. You setup an account on DropCard that includes all of your social networking account information. Then I head out to a conference or event. I meet someone new and have a good discussion with her or him. At the end of the conversation, the point where you would normally exchange cards, you now ask the person for their email address. You send their email address via SMS to DropCard. DropCard then immediately sends the person your contact information including social network profiles, name, email, etc. Now the other person can friend you up on the other networks and never has to worry about trying to locate your business card.
The DropCard system can handle multiple profiles so that you can have a work and pleasure profile or multiple profiles for work and a side business, etc. When you create an account on DropCard, it automatically pulls back your profiles on Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn. You can add other services including: BlackPlanet, Bebo, Friendster, Flickr, Multiply and an “other” category. You can also include links to your Web sites, blogs and IM networks. This is a good option because now when the contact returns to their office or home, they will be more inclined to actually visit my site or blog versus trying to get them to enter the information from a business card. A vCard is also sent to your contact which can be exported to email and mobile devices.
The service is free and the team tells me that enterprise services is where they intend to generate revenue.
Here are some things I’d like to see added to DropCard:
- a way to associate the email address with the initial location for the entry. This way I can create contact lists from events, and be able to find contacts by event type.
- ability to edit the look of the contact page – my logo, my design, etc.
The DropCard team is three friends from the University of Pennsylvania, one of whom graduated Wharton School of Business and the other two are pursuing Engineering. They created a video about how you can use the business cards you already have – since you won’t need them now.
Related ad: CloudContacts scans and transcribes your business cards and connects them on CRM systems, email services and social networks.
Sounds interesting, but I’m personally more excited about the Mingle360 (http://mingle360.com/).
Maybe the two should combine their efforts?
Wow. That is a very cool idea. It’s actually similar to how the myDropcard idea began in our minds. Hardware is a tough path, which makes Mingle impressive.
We decided to be resourceful and use existing technology that’s in everyone’s pockets. We also tried to avoid the network-effect barrier. But if Mingle can achieve strong distribution, that’s the ideal. Many solutions to the same problem.
Hey Nick….how did you find out about Mingle360.com? I love it! Thanks for the info :)
LoL the video! Good stuff, all around!
Hooray for covering Philly startups!
Tal showed me this a few weeks back when he came by IndyHall and I was really impressed. I’m excited to see where this product goes.
I hope you get a chance to cover other DreamIT startups in coming weeks as well.
Yea, go Philly! I will do what I can for the town that made the cheesesteak famous. I can help Philly because at least you don’t claim to have better pizza, like that windy city. You also don’t have a crappy baseball team like those in Boston.
This looks very cool – so simple too – just whip out your mobile, type in the email address and bam – now the other person has a full email with your info.
it would be interesting to see if more sales are completed when using a system like this
Doug- I found out because a friend of mine had almost the exact same idea for a company. When we were researching to see if the product existed we ran into Mingle360. He spoke with them and found out a number of things about the company. I am just hoping they launch the product soon.
Oddly enough, an ex-coworker of mine is working with Mingle360, but I only found out about that after we had found the company. Small world. ;D
Any thoughts on how this compares to DubMeNow.com?