Idea Of The Day: Exchange Contact Information Digitally So You Don’t Have To Carry Business Cards

This idea: Instead of collecting (and probably losing) a pile of business cards, Hashable lets you exchange digital business cards instantly.

Here’s how it works: Aftering storing your contact info on Hashable, you can send it to people you’ve met by entering their email address or Twitter handle on the website or by using Hashable’s iPhone app.

The app also lets you introduce any two people in your address book and pull up people’s contact info, along with their photo, and assigning tags such as #justmet, #meeting, etc.

For example, you can group the people you’ve met at the SXSW conference under #SXSW and use that tag to find those contacts when you get home.

Whose idea: Michael Yavonditte

Why it’s quasi-brilliant: Hashable makes it easier to manage contacts without having to keep a rolodex. If you pay for your own business cards, not having to print new ones may also help you save money.

Hashable is less useful if you are not familiar with using hashtags or the person whose contact information you are recording does not use LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook and has very little information online.

Even if that person does use several social networking tools, TechCrunch pointed out you can end up with duplicate Hashable entries from the different sites. Depending on your comfort level with technology, you might want to hang on to those business cards.

Hashable is a little too confusing and scattered at the moment. When it gets more streamlined and simplified though, it could be a great, paper-saving alternative.

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