AUSTIN, Texas — It's the latter half of 2009. If we're all so digitally connected, why are we still passing out our most important business information on little pieces of paper? It doesn't seem very smart to give out your contact data in a format that can be easily tossed, lost or washed in tomorrow's load of laundry.
On the other hand, the humble business card is portable, cheap and ubiquitous. It doesn't require a specific kind of application, operating system or device to read.
Which gets to the heart of why all in the business world have yet to embrace the idea of a fully digital business card.
Ten years ago, many of us beamed our contact information on Palm Pilots via infrared ports pointed at each other. Today, there are iPhone apps that do the same wirelessly (my favorite: "Bump," which is activated when two iPhone owners fist-bump their devices together).
Some companies are working to embed digital data (say, links to social networks you belong to) on business cards themselves. And at this year's South by Southwest Interactive Conference, the tiny Poken device was buzzed about. Users who have them can exchange contact information by high-fiving the little hand-shaped devices together.
Unfortunately, none of those ideas really works universally unless you have an iPhone, a Poken or a business card with circuitry on it. Looks like we'll be waiting a little while longer.
One Austin company says a solution is already here, within a technology nearly everyone with a cell phone has access to: text messaging. TXT4CRM — which specializing in text-based business services and consulting — has a tool called "Text4vCard." If you were, say, meeting a new client at a networking mixer, you could have them text your unique user ID to the number 70626.
The service would text message that person a link to contact information you set up in advance. That information could be imported into the contact data on some phones or into an e-mail program like Microsoft Outlook. Other than standard carrier texting charges, the service is free.
Carrie Chitsey, chief executive of TXT4CRM (which recently underwent a name change; it was previously "Text4ROI") says text messaging has matured beyond voting on "American Idol" and has become a serious tool to save company costs and for marketing and advertising.
"Texting has gone so much farther beyond the reality shows and is a mission-critical application now," Chitsey said. "It's a very mature technology; we're seeing the brink of what can be done in the mobile space."
With the business card application, Chitsey's team worked up a version for trade shows to demonstrate the power of texting and to show a good corporate application for it.
"We just used it for the wow factor," she said. "We had people coming to us asking how they could get that and how much it costs."
Unlike a paper business card, users of Text4vCard can keep track online of how many people have texted a request for a digital business card and how many have downloaded it into their phone.
Chitsey says texting for business goes far beyond exchanging contact information. Her company, which has about 20 employees, also helps companies find ways to save money on its services and to better communicate with their customers.
"If I'm Time Warner Cable, rather than having a $3 call to let you know I'm going to be at your home, I have the ability to send a text message. That's a $2.90 saving across millions of dollars a month," Chitsey said.
Scheduling applications via text — such as companies allowing employees to check their work schedules or doctors to schedule appointments by SMS — are other ways texting can benefit business, she says. Saving on labor and communicating in a medium that customers prefer decreases costs and increases customer satisfaction.
But back to that business card problem: Is texting the answer for avoiding the obligatory trip to Kinko's when you start a new business?
According to CTIA, the wireless industry's trade association, 1 trillion SMS messages were sent in 2008, and there were 270 million wireless subscribers. Of those, about 90 percent have access to texting.
So it's a safe bet that exchanging a business card via text will be possible for most people you come across.
But old habits die hard. Technology may change, but it probably never hurts to flash a bright smile and keep a set of cards in your pocket.
Omar L. Gallaga writes for the Austin American-Statesman. E-mail: ogallaga(at)statesman.com.