Archive for March, 2009

I was at a business meeting this week and as usual I bring a stack of business cards with me to give to business contacts. We all do the card exchanging dance, it has gone on for as long as I remember. I have gone through tens of thousands of cards over my career and I have huge piles of other people’s cards as well.

I have come up with solutions to manage my existing cards I have received such as scanning, filing and throwing out the physical cards. But this does not prevent you from still having to exchange cards. I was put on to a new service called Contxts which is in Alpha (So expect things not to work and it to develop over the next little while).

I learned about the service when the third person I ran into asked me if i was on Contxt. I said “Huh?”

I was schooled on this new service which stores your virtual business card and returns it to any user texting your username to 50500.

Want to see what it does – text AskTheAdmin to 50500 and you will get a card I set up for this article. And no that phone number is NOT my number!

I had a Palm Pilot Vx way back when and I tried “Beaming” my contact information to others and it always caused some problem or another. Mostly with finding out if the recipient had a phone or device that was capable of catching my beam. Contxt uses text messaging which any modern cell phone has – this opens up the service to any cell phone user – now that’s a big market!

Let’s check out the service. Browse on over to http:/www.contxts.com and sign up for the free service (Normal Text Messaging Rates Will Apply!) After choosing a username and giving contxts your information you will see a screen similar to this one below with your information on it:

You can customize the message to your hearts content as well as remove Contxts text ad along the bottom. There is also a check box at the bottom of this screen that allows you to get a text message with the users phone number when they request your card. This is a neat tracking feature but again normal text messaging rates DO apply so use your brain when choosing to check or not to check this box.

Due to Contxts Alpha status some features are still being developed like the social network connectivity boxes you see below. You can fill them out and save the information but it is not transmitted via text message just yet.

You can also TXT ‘SEND 3034759204′ TO 50500 TO BEAM YOUR CARD FROM YOUR PHONE (where 3034759204 is the recipients’ number) and this will send the card to that person without them having to request it.

Another feature that is in the work is Contxt’s contacts that will allow you to upload your contacts name, phone number and email addresses. It does not say anything other than coming soon – but you can bet this will be integrated in text messages at a later date. Instead of saying 9175551212 requested your contact information, it will probably say joe Shmoe requested your card ala PhoneTag’s contact page.

Let’s take a look at the actual text messaging system – I used my HTC Touch Pro to text ASKTHEADMIN to 50500 as you can see below (and used Pocket Controller to grab the screen shots)

About 45 seconds later I received a text message back from 50500 with the card I created at the beginning of the article.  And almost instantly after that I got a text message that I requested a card… How did they know my name? That I do not know and some geek cred goes to the first AskTheAdmin reader who can tell me how they got that info down with out me uploading any contact information!

I am starting to use it on a regular basis now and will keep a watchful eye on Contxts as it is an awesome up and coming service that will surely get bought out and cost money at a later date! Let us know what you think of Contxts and if you use another method of digitally transferring your contact information instead of the old fashioned card exchange method that has been going on for a long ass time!

_TheOutOfContextAdmiN_