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starman · Apr 22, 2009, 11:18 PM

http://www.doyoupoken.com

Anyone have one of these? I saw them at SXSW and thought "cool", but I didn't know if they'd catch on or not. Well, they're starting to but they're not here in the US yet. Does anyone have one? How often do you actually use the thing? Are they popular where you are?

Jawbone54 · Apr 23, 2009, 01:22 AM

The day I carry a panda cartoon USB stick around in my pocket at all times is the day I get a Madonna tattoo across my forehead.

Consider this a Photoshop challenge.

Spheric Harlot · Apr 23, 2009, 02:24 AM

Wait - so what is that in your front pock…

Oh. Nevermind.

Salty —

PANDA TIME!!

Maflynn · Apr 23, 2009, 08:21 AM

Maybe if I was a 14 year old girl, this would interest me, but given that I'm a 40 something man, it holds absolute no interest.

starman · Apr 23, 2009, 08:40 AM

Apparently these things are huge outside the US.

Ok, forget about the Pandas and the Aliens, the IDEA that you carry around an electronic business card is actually quite nice. Less problems carrying those things around (like I had to at SXSW), and you can gather a lot of them without having to sort them later. I think it's a great idea, it just needs to be refined.

Oisín · Apr 23, 2009, 09:00 AM

Originally Posted by starman

Apparently these things are huge outside the US.

Some places, perhaps; but not everywhere. I’ve never heard of them before this thread.

Ok, forget about the Pandas and the Aliens, the IDEA that you carry around an electronic business card is actually quite nice. Less problems carrying those things around (like I had to at SXSW), and you can gather a lot of them without having to sort them later. I think it's a great idea, it just needs to be refined.

Agreed.

I only spent about three seconds on the site, so my research is not very well done, but the idea that that you can just ‘shake hands’ with someone else’s little electronic dongle, rather than having to write down e-mail addresses/ICQ numbers/AIM nicks/Facebook profile names, etc. and then add them once you’re back home and on the Internet—that’s definitely a good idea.

ghporter · Apr 23, 2009, 09:32 AM

Originally Posted by Maflynn

Maybe if I was a 14 year old girl, this would interest me, but given that I'm a 40 something man, it holds absolute no interest.

Unless I was buying it for a 14 year old girl... Thankfully, I have a son, not a daughter, and thankfully he's 21, not 14...

Spheric Harlot · Apr 23, 2009, 09:53 AM

Originally Posted by Oisín

the idea that that you can just ‘shake hands’ with someone else’s little electronic dongle, rather than having to write down e-mail addresses/ICQ numbers/AIM nicks/Facebook profile names, etc. and then add them once you’re back home and on the Internet—that’s definitely a good idea.

Wouldn't it be great if cellphones had this capability?

Oh wait, they do.

That's how everybody I know (except iPhone owners) has been transferring contact data for the past five years.

starman · Apr 23, 2009, 09:57 AM

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot

Wouldn't it be great if cellphones had this capability?

Oh wait, they do.

That's how everybody I know (except iPhone owners) has been transferring contact data for the past five years.

Except not all phones did that very well. EVERYONE you know? EVERYONE? I couldn't get a Nokia to talk to a Motorola phone.

Spheric Harlot · Apr 23, 2009, 10:07 AM

Originally Posted by starman

Except not all phones did that very well. EVERYONE you know? EVERYONE? I couldn't get a Nokia to talk to a Motorola phone.

Actually yes, everyone in recent memory - except for iPhone owners and one guy I met a while ago with an ancient Nokia that couldn't accept contacts sent via SMS.

Bluetooth is finicky, occasionally, but thankfully irrelevant for transferring contacts.

Oisín · Apr 23, 2009, 10:09 AM

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot

Wouldn't it be great if cellphones had this capability?

Oh wait, they do.

That's how everybody I know (except iPhone owners) has been transferring contact data for the past five years.

Really? How? I don’t think mine does that (mind you, it is a crappy old SE K700i). I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone up here doing it that way, either …

Edit: Oh, bluetooth contacts. But that only adds a phone contact with (perhaps, if the phone supports it) an e-mail address or two.

What I’d love is a little gadget that I could just hold next to someone else’s little gadget, and then when I plug it into my computer, it automatically adds this other person to my address book, and adds them as friends in iChat/AIM/Y!M/GoogleTalk/Facebook/flickr/whatever-SNS-you-use. Would be neat.

starman · Apr 23, 2009, 10:14 AM

I never said Bluetooth, did I?

Even over IR, it was flaky. BT was worse.

And if it DID work, you can forget about the right fields in the right place. I'd get "Los Angeles" in the "Last Name" field unless it was from the same phone.

Hopefully with this new proximity system the new iPhone OS will have we'll have some working way of doing this.

Spheric Harlot · Apr 23, 2009, 10:36 AM

Pretty much every modern phone has the capability to send contacts either via Bluetooth or SMS. I usually use SMS.

I've been trading contacts this way for years, and honestly have NEVER encountered fields not being assigned correctly. Fields simply being unsupported and not filled at all, yes, but mis-assigned? Never.

If you have a crap phone that won't accept vCards via SMS, then the contact info will show as plain text in the SMS. If it *does* accept vCards via SMS, the contact automatically gets added to the address book and is synced back to the computer the next time you sync it.

The iPhone 3.0 can *finally* transfer contacts via *MMS* (why not as SMS, like every other phone? Not all phones are set up for MMS reception) and hopefully via Bluetooth.

The iPhone's inability to do this, btw, was one of the deal-breakers that are making me wait for the next-generation software.

Oisín · Apr 23, 2009, 11:39 AM

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot

Pretty much every modern phone has the capability to send contacts either via Bluetooth or SMS. I usually use SMS.

If you have a crap phone that won't accept vCards via SMS, then the contact info will show as plain text in the SMS. If it *does* accept vCards via SMS, the contact automatically gets added to the address book and is synced back to the computer the next time you sync it.

Huh. I’d never even heard of that (via SMS, I mean).

Maybe it’s just ’cause we travel in different circles, but apart from iPhone users, I don’t think I know anyone who actually syncs their phone with their computer.

And vCards still only sync with the Address Book, not with Facebook, twitter, flickr, IM protocols, etc.

Luca Rescigno · Apr 23, 2009, 12:27 PM

This is silly. I like the idea of an electronic business card but one which requires anyone else you meet to also have one? Yeah, like that'll work. Sort of like the Zune's music sharing feature. It would be great - if anyone had a Zune.

I could see cheap USB flash drives as being much more effective as electronic business cards. They're cheap enough now that you can afford to give them out to people you think would be interested in you (though a stack of standard business cards would be good since the cheapest flash drives are still like $3 each). You could put your vCard, a plain text file with your contact info as a backup, and perhaps a sample of your portfolio, depending on what you do for a living.

starman · Apr 23, 2009, 12:42 PM

Originally Posted by Luca Rescigno

This is silly. I like the idea of an electronic business card but one which requires anyone else you meet to also have one? Yeah, like that'll work. Sort of like the Zune's music sharing feature. It would be great - if anyone had a Zune.

I could see cheap USB flash drives as being much more effective as electronic business cards. They're cheap enough now that you can afford to give them out to people you think would be interested in you (though a stack of standard business cards would be good since the cheapest flash drives are still like $3 each). You could put your vCard, a plain text file with your contact info as a backup, and perhaps a sample of your portfolio, depending on what you do for a living.

People will LOVE that, especially the ones with viruses on them.

SpaceMonkey · Apr 23, 2009, 04:17 PM

Ha. Yeah, our IT department just sent out a notice that we're supposed to have any USB sticks scanned by them for viruses before we use them on office computers.

Luca Rescigno · Apr 23, 2009, 06:36 PM

Originally Posted by starman

People will LOVE that, especially the ones with viruses on them.

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey

Ha. Yeah, our IT department just sent out a notice that we're supposed to have any USB sticks scanned by them for viruses before we use them on office computers.

LOL, didn't even think of that.

Okay then, traditional business cards FTW. These days, enough people have mobile devices like BlackBerries and iPhones that they can easily store any information they need on a new contact without even having to write it down.