Cloud Contacts, the online manager for offline business cards, has a new feature for users with camera phones. You're now able to snap a pic of a business card and send it off to get categorized with other contact cards you've sent in. There is no application for this, you simply send off a copy to a special, private e-mail address.
Unlike competing services Evernote and Shoeboxed, Cloud Contacts creator Allen Stern says his system brings more accuracy to the table since each submission is handled by real people instead of machine scanning (update: Shoeboxed has people looking over the data too). This can be far more important with camera phone pictures since your phone's built-in camera tends to focus about two to three feet away, making the text on business cards quite tiny.
If you've got an iPhone and are thinking about using this service, worth checking out is Griffin's Clarifi case, since it lets you focus about four inches away from a business card.
(Credit:
Moo Print)
Web-savvy printing company Moo.com has finally buckled from the requests of customers and is launching full-size business cards. The new offering will be available in the next few days.
Card design will still use the same Web-based editor that's been available for Moo's other products, although users will be getting more than twice the size they're used to with Moo's flagship mini cards. There's also a selection of design templates for the front side of the card that will contain all the contact information, which can now be slurped up right from LinkedIn.
For the back side of the card, users can grab up to 50 different photos from popular hosts like Flickr, Facebook, Bebo, and others and get them printed out for $21.99. However, users who sign up to be part of Moo's mailing list can get 20 percent off, bringing the price down to $17.60.
For the environmentally conscious, the new cards also come in two different stocks: the original stock used in the mini cards and a new "green" stock made from 100 percent recycled paper.
A promo video for the new cards is below.
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Entrepreneurs of all types have attempted to kill off the phone number in place of something simpler. We've seen tokens, special re-routing numbers, and even services that offer a number you can give someone that tells them you're not interested.
A new service called RmbrMe is of a different breed, choosing to use short-code messaging to let you give out access to any or all of your social-networking profiles with a simple text message. Who needs conversation when we have Facebook's wall?
To use it in a real-life situation, you'd have to grab someone's number or e-mail address (maybe the hardest part of the equation) and text it to RmbrMe's short code (762763). If you've registered with the service and given it the credentials of various services you're affiliated with, it will automatically send the person whose number you just got to a special page listing each of your affiliations in a single place. From there they can befriend you or check you out before getting in touch.
Users who sign up get to use the service free of charge for two weeks. After that it costs 49 cents per message on top of whatever SMS charges you're incurring from your carrier. Power users can also work out bulk deals to pay less if they're planning to use the service extensively.
This whole idea reminds me a lot of virtualized business cards, or services that let you host a special page for you with your contact information. For people who are a little too sheepish to carry around business cards or scared of starting a blog these are simple and viable solutions, even though the same results could be had for free with a little elbow grease. In the case of RmbrMe, at 49 cents a pop you might be better off shelling out for some Moo cards or starting a blog just for your contact information.
When you share your number or e-mail with someone via RmbrMe they'll be taken to this page that lists your profile information on various social networks.
(Credit: ChroniQL/RmbrMe.com)
In late May, Facebook posted some stats about adoption rates, and usage of their photo service. The numbers were pretty staggering for a social network, and as it currently stands, more than 14 million photos uploaded to the service every day. To take advantage of all those shots, the folks at Moo.com, makers of all sorts of Web integrated print items have added a link to Facebook photos for use in their entire product line.
If you're a Facebook user, you can pull in photos from any of your albums, or browse by the people that you've tagged. Linking up the two services involves authenticating Moo, which is as simple as clicking a button once you're logged in.
Also interesting is Moo's movement into designer graphics. The site is offering a slew of ready-made card designs in case you're not the type to use your own art of photography on business cards or their stickers products.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
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