#cardflick

I'm so thrilled about SXSW this year! As my departure to the big ol' Texas gets closer, my excitement grows as big as some of the Texas hair-dos. I might even need to dye my hair blonde and buy a bunch of hair spray just to make sure I fit in! J/K

All hair-dos aside, our party Friday night is going to ROCK! textPlus is sponsoring the State of Now party that is hosted by Jeff Pulver #140conf. Plus, we'll have the awesome guys from Card Flick co-sponsoring the party, and sushi from Roll on Sushi! But wait....there's more!

We'll be doing some nifty things at the party to help everyone network and get to know each other. No wall flowers allowed at this party. I've created a State Of Now community on textPlus to help us all network- before, during, and after the party. Make sure to download textPlus and join the community to join in all the fun. 

Don't forget to download Card Flick too. It's a great app to digitally share your cards- no more piles of paper cards! Yippee!! In fact, the guys at Card Flick are making our textPlus cards right now. I can't wait to see them Flicked at everyone. (Ok- that sounded wrong)

And...I'm not done yet. We'll be trying out Slide Chute for the party too. They just launched their beta this week. Every photo that is tweeted, insta-shared or flickered at the party using our hashtag #StateofNow will be in one place. So, after our whirlwind party, we can see what exactly happened. 9Now, if only my past relationships where that way.) Check out Slide Chute now - it's really cool!

Don't forget to  RSVP now for our party on Friday night. We have only a few tickets left.

My first trip to the West Coast was an amazing time. I got to spend time with my cousins, uncle and aunt. First thing I noticed about Cali was the weather. 80 degrees during the day, 50 to 60s in the evening. You can't ask for better weather than that. My uncle took me to see his office which is in Fremont. His company basically builds network infrastructure for retail stores, office buildings, and companies. He is one of three partners which is pretty cool. I also got to visit my aunt's office in Fremont. She's apparently a rockstar real estate agent at Keller Williams. 

On Thursday I got to meet with the co-founders of Favo.rs Adam Rodnitzky and George Aspland. They were really cool guys to hang out with. I also have to Thank them since they took me to lunch. We got lunch to go since they had a rooftop deck at their office. We had lunch and talked about my ideas I had for start-up ideas I had. It was great getting their feedback from them. After lunch, George suggested that we go to the conference room and watch how I used favo.rs. This was actually fun because I got to show them how I used favo.rs. George and Adam discovered how I would search for favo.rs that I had granted for other people on their site. Before you would be able to see the favo.rs  you granted in the "their" tab. However, they moved it into the view profile page. I didn't realize how important design was until they pointed things like that out. I felt like I could have talked to them forever about their service and technology in general. I also have to say that it's pretty cool to meet founders/co-founders of products and/or services that you use. So thanks guys for meeting me with and for lunch. If you guys are in New York, let me know and I'll treat you guys to lunch.

On Friday I also met another start-up, Card Flick. I also love their app for the iPhone and have written a review about on my other blog The Beta User. Meeting the Card Flick team was pretty cool. I got to see one of their designers Zach Acuna at work which was pretty cool. Ketan Anjaria, the co-founder of Card Flick also took my to lunch with Zach. It was a pretty awesome lunch not because I was hanging out with them, but because they were able to help me out about me getting laid off. They also invited me to their 50K Launch party at The Summit. I really wish I attended since they posted pics up from the party and it look like a lot of fun. I was also hoping to get my T-shirts from them, however they are very popular shirts and ran out in my size. Ketan said don't worry that he will mail me my shirts when they get more in so Thanks for that. If you guys come to New York, let me know I'll definitely will take you guys out. I wish Adam and Devin came to lunch as well but they seemed busy at work. 

The rest of the time I got I spent it my family and we drove up Mount Diablo which was a pretty crazy drive up. On the way up, we saw cyclist go up and down the mountain, which I thought was an insane bike up. When got up the mountain, I actually talked to a cyclist and asked how long it took him to bike up, he said it was just about an hour to bike up from North Gate. Which I thought wasn't bad at all. The ride down though must be a lot of fun. The view was worth the trek though, very relaxing view. I obviously checked into Mount Diablo using Foursquare. You can check out some more images from other people. 

I also got experience the hype of In-and-Out Burger. I have to say, the Burger was AMAZING!!!! However, fries I've had better. Of course I got my burger Animal style. I honestly wanted to have a couple of burgers since we don't have them here on the east coast. I do hope that changes though. 

CardFlick for iPhone from KidBombay has gained more social links and sharing management. This is a stylish app for sharing business cards like Bump, but with a unique experience and design.

UPDATE: CardFlick is free for its first week (9/12-9/17). It has already signed up over 7K users - and it's Monday morning. Off to a hot start!

In an earlier post on this blog, I mentioned the particularly sticky technological and behavioral problem of replacing the paper business card. Many have tried, none has unequivocally succeeded.  I speculated back then that a better way might come along, but could be a long way off given the current options profiled in the New York Times and elsewhere.

However, a new entrant named CardFlick, may well challenge that assertion in the short term. CardFlick joined the Apple App Store on September 7, and is distinguishing itself with a silky-smooth design and an engaging new way of exchanging data. A quick look at the Dribble profile for the app reveals how good the "cards", developed in cooperation with third-party designers, look. CardFlick is launching with quite a few designs, and planning to add greatly to the options in the near future.

The key value CardFlick provides is an engaging, low-effort way to swap data with contacts you meet face-to-face. Rather than a somewhat impersonal vCard on an email (very BlackBerry user), you "flick" the card with your thumb, watch it disappear from your screen, and reappear as a card on the other user's screen. Now your new contacts can save your information in their directory.

The design is smooth, as you can see in this video:

I think one of the things I like best about this product is it's not an impersonal, enterprise product built for and by the corporate set. Founder Ketan Anjaria ran San Francisco design firm KidBombay for a decade before getting to work on CardFlick, and he's assembled a team and advisors who seem to be professionals in user experience and design. To me, that means they are taking a knowledgeable approach to one of the key questions about mobile business card apps: can you get people to use them repeatedly because they're easier and more fun than paper, and more personal than attaching a vCard to an email?

That value proposition will be the one CardFlick has to address to achieve real traction in the event networking space. To be a common networking tool, an app like this can't be downloaded to your phone once and then deleted. These tools have to be not only engaging but familiar, so that when I want to send you my info you can pull out your phone which also already has CardFlick installed. Achieving "critical mass" at any given networking event will be a major priority for CardFlick on the road to widescale adoption.

It's easy to see ways that conference organizers could add CardFlick to their event, either officially or unofficially. During the registration process, you might include a link to the CardFlick app so that users have ample time to set up their contact information and carry it with them to the event. Another placard at the sign-in desk for the event, and you'll probably have converted most interested parties at the event.

A TechCrunch article speculated that CardFlick could partner with event organizers to offer a branded app for specific conferences' networking sessions. However, I've found that custom-developed apps for events always end up as a hassle and compromise, and would advise conference attendees to use CardFlick, or any app they choose, as an official partner rather than trying to contract for a custom solution.

If the app is good enough to be used at your event, it deserves the exposure to a user base that may use the app frequently in the future. Merely being introduced to a great product at your event will be enough association to keep the attendee coming back. The team is dreaming big and wants to be that app everyone at a conference will use to exchange their information, and it's easy to see how much help it could be to conferences it will be if they achieve that goal.

CardFlick launches to find a multitude of business professionals weary of reaching into their pockets for cards. But those same users may be perfectly ready to reach into their pockets to pay for a better way.