Facebook pushes social business cards

Facebook has partnered with MOO.com to offer users ready-to-print business cards, based on their Timelines.

Timeline is the new profile design, which was officially rolled out to users worldwide just before the festive season. The new design offers a more holistic profile of Facebook users, allowing for the inclusion and customisation of all important milestones and life events from birth to present.

The newly dubbed “Facebook Cards” make use of the user's cover photo and basic information to create a personalised business card, which can then be ordered from MOO Cards.

The printing company is running a promotion whereby the first 200 000 users will receive a free 50-card bundle. MOO.com is limiting the availability of the special offer to 5 000 users per day. The first 50 000 orders will receive free shipping, while the remaining 150 000 will incur a fee.

MOO says: “When we first heard Facebook were redesigning their profile page to include large format photography, it was pretty clear to us that this would look great on a business card.

“Working closely with the Facebook Timeline team, we translated their cover photo concept to our business card format by mirroring the fonts, layout and iconography of the Timeline.”

The back of the card will include a quotation or sentence about the user. By default this is the first quote under “Favourite Quotations” on the user's profile, but this can be edited.

To get a Facebook Card, users must click on “About” under their basic information on their Timelines. Scroll down to “Contact Info” and mouse over the business card icon, after which a pop-up box should appear with a preview of the card and a link to MOO.

The initiative has been hailed by some as “ground-breaking”, saying it marks a fundamental shift in the way people contact each other, placing social media at the core.

According to reports, MOO.com CEO Richard Moross is quoted as saying: "It's clear that consumer habits of sharing business and personal information are evolving, and the lines between online social networking and offline business networking are not just blurring, but vanishing.”

Starfish Mobile International CTO Jon Hoehler says the new Facebook Cards will have novelty appeal among social media and digital evangelists.

“I would also see this sort of service being utilised by SME business owners in the future who require an efficient and cost-effective solution to business cards,” says Hoehler.

“With the rise of more SMEs using social media portals as their primary business tools, the use of such business cards is the next logical step.”

Hoehler notes that for individuals working in large corporates, the corporate issue business cards supplied to them will still dominate that segment.

“However, more and more, you see large corporates allowing individuals to add their Twitter handles, as an example, to business cards. An interesting use of new mobile technology is some Nokia executives having QR codes on their business cards. When the QR code is scanned, a V-card is then downloaded to the user's mobile handset.”

Speaking of the bigger picture, Hoehler says social-media-based business cards will form just part of the new-age business person's digital identity.

“The trend of moving away from traditional business communications mediums to social media platforms is happening,” says Hoehler.

“You just have to see within e-mail stationery numerous individuals adding their LinkedIn profiles and Twitter handles right next to their e-mail, mobile numbers and Skype IDs.”

Hoehler, however, argues that social business cards will be limited to early adopters and SME business owners.

“For me, it's just another tool in the ever-increasing arsenal of digital identity tools for the digital executive. Five years ago, people were wondering if Facebook or Twitter could ever be used by traditional brands to push their marketing messages, and now these platforms are either being used in conjunction with the brand's traditional media, or in some cases as its primary medium.

“In the developed world, this type of business card will become popular among the certain demographic of executive. In the developing world, that's a whole different discussion,” says Hoehler.