Contxts: Business Cards by SMS
It seems obvious really – no Bluetooth, infra-red or wifi – but a simple SMS as a data carrier for small items of information.
Contxts harnesses the ubiquity of SMS to enable users to share contact information and electronic business cards without worrying about common data formats or the availability of common connection protocols.
After joining the service and completing your contact information, users simply text the recipients number and a ’send’ command to a Contxts shortcode.
One of the happy intended consequences is the automatic and organic growth of a social network as contact information is shared, as well as a central repository for contacts.
The mechanisms for sharing are novel and quite universal, but are probably easily applied to existing address book services such as Plaxo, Gmail contacts and LinkedIn, raising questions about the longevity of the service.
It’s not difficult to envisage Contxts becoming a hub to these other services, or perhaps simply a feature that the bug guys simply add to wider address book and contact book services.
2 Comments, Comment or Ping
Print Matt
There is also a downside on this type of service, you actually do not know who can "pull" your information.
Mar 27th, 2009
Printclick
Good point Matt. If someone can just plug in some information about you and they can retrieve your personal details (cell #, address, etc.). Other than that though, the service is awesome.
Mar 27th, 2009
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