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By Tom Groenfeldt
You don’t necessarily have to suffer from multiple personality disorder to appreciate AnyTime Card -- it’s enough to be a busy professional, especially if you have a life, or lives, outside work.
Available for $4.99 from the iPhone store, the AnyTime Card application allows you to create multiple electronic business cards, edit or annotate them on the fly, communicate them to a new acquaintance by SMS or text message, and then maintain an archived record of the contact for follow-up or targeted text messaging.
Larry Zinox, founder and chief marketing officer of Chicago-based Softa Ventures, which developed the application, said a salesperson at a trade show could ask an industry contact for his cell phone number and then send a well-designed graphical business card to that number from his iPhone or iTouch. Soon the application will be available for Blackberry and, through a Web platform, all other smartphones as well. The AnyTime card user will then have the number on file, so he can add personal details, and use the number to send a follow-up message.
The cards can be go-tagged so a user can look for contacts by location, such as a conference in Las Vegas or someone met on a business trip to New York, through a location-based search. Because the user has his contact’s information, he can follow up with texts anytime. And because the texts go through the AnyTime system, they’re free.
“We saw an opportunity to move business cards and business information exchange into the 21st century,” explained Zinox. “You send it, it goes out instantly, and you have a record of where it went.” You can have as many different card designs as you want. AnyTime offers several categories of cards, or a user can design her own.
“Say if I worked for IBM, during work hours I send out my AnyTime card with my work number and my IBM e-mail, plus links to certain information on the IBM Web site or perhaps a video on YouTube that I want to direct people to. At home, I run an e-business with my wife out of the garage, so I have a separate card for that. Weekends I work with the Scouts, so I might have a card for that with a cell phone number so they don’t call me at IBM. It gives you a chance to give out the appropriate information at the appropriate time.”
Because the cards reside in memory, they can be modified. A real estate agent could put a few of her latest listings on her electronic card. Or a user can add information relevant to his contact, such as “app works with Win7 and Mac,” for a potential technology partner. “It appeals to mobile professionals who are out doing sales and marketing,” Zinox added. “It can also appeal to personal users who would like to exchange a very limited amount of information with someone they meet at a club, for example.”
The company expects to offer an enhanced version for commercial users such as real estate agents, contractors and stores. Zinox said a pizza restaurant could use some incentive, such as coupons, to collect cell phone numbers. Then, with 300 names it could send out a text blast after school offering half-price Cokes to catch high school students on their way home. On weekend evenings, the pizza place could target an older audience with messaging about a band playing, or an offer of half-priced martinis.
“You can group your audience for marketing messages,” noted Zinox.
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