@rrhoover @tonysphere Funny. I actually got the idea at the YC Startup School in London where everyone (and these are techies) still used these old, lame paper cards. Very good question about the adoption. I had (and still have) a hard time to convince people to use it. Most people see the benefit (unlimited, never forget, no cost, customizable, profile image, environment, ...) but as you said it's not a _huge_ pain. One thing I realized is that people need to be aware of this solution. An app probably helps a lot (actually working on a app version myself) but I'm not sure if that's really the key thing.

@rrhoover Hey Ryan, apologies for being a bit late to the conversation this morning. On launch days, I always go for a looooong run in the morning to celebrate and get my head clear. Anyway, I'm now in the flow. Firstly, we're not trying to replace the physical b-card. I suspect they eventually go away or are only exchanged in very special circumstances but eventually, I believe they'll fade away over a very long period of time. We enable our users to take their about.me page and turn it into 2 different type of business cards: 1) Physical business cards: We've made it super easy for our users to take their background image and place it on the front of a business card that also includes a link to their about.me page. I love our physical business cards because they correct one of the most vexing issues of the traditional business card: I never know who the person is when I pull out the stack of business cards at the end of a trip or conference, etc. With our cards, because you put your picture on the front and include a link to your about.me page, it's much more likely the recipient will remember who you were, etc. 2) Digital business cards: With this release, we're solving 2 issues IMO. The first is the ability to adjust on the fly what level of information I include on my business card depending on who I'm giving it to. Like a lot of people, I don't like giving out my physical business card because it includes all my information, most importantly, my cell. I rarely give out my cell so I love the flexibility our Intro app creates - I can add or subtract information with 1 click just prior to sending the business card. Secondly, I almost always have my phone (ie, when I'm running, when I go to the grocery store, basically everywhere). I would say at least 50% of the time I want to give someone a business card so they can follow up with me, I don't have them with me. I may be atypical but I don't think so. And if you believe in a world in which your phone becomes your wallet, are people going to carry business cards separately - I don't think so. NTL, we as a service don't need to decide. What we as a service need to do, is to provide our users with the ability to decide for themselves because we've covered both options. Regarding your cultural question, I totally agree but Japan has only 127M people. They're 7.1B people on the planet. 3.4B of them are under 25 years of age. So, I like the digital business cards chances :)

@tonysphere @rrhoover Completely agree with that. I think so too. I talked with many people about my app and I actually got this a lot that people told me that they don't have their cards when they need it. The thing with the level of information is probably less a problem for most people. Not everyone is as famous as you Tony. ;) One other thing I wanted to tackle is that it's hard to connect to someone on your phone. So with my solution you get direct links to the social media profiles so the receiver can connect quickly (nobody wants to do a search on LinkedIn...). And this is tested with me. When I send out a card the receiver usually connects with me in the next hour or so. That never happened with business cards. And here it makes sense to have multiple cards. With some people I'm rather connected on LI and with some other rather on FB. So multiple cards/optional fields are a great way to steer that.

@chdrakon @tonysphere @rrhoover I have a physical business card for my company which is perfect when meeting someone professionally in person. But it's really nice to have an about.me for every other interaction I have. I blog for a music website, have a dog that I might set up a playdate for, or meet someone who I'm not quite comfortable giving a direct contact line to. It's also a virtuous loop to our company website, for when people search my name they will see the about.me page that links to Signal Camp and vice versa.

@lauraglu @chdrakon @rrhoover Thanks Laura GLU!

@nikitakorotaev hi Nikita - we add a time and location stamp to each Intro you make and receive. Thanks for having an about.me page - if you send send me a link, I'll take a look and help you make any necessary tweaks to optimize the page :)

@kevinrose thanks Kevin! My favorite feature is the ability to toggle between what information I give out and the information I don't. With each contact, it's a judgement call so I love that flexibility.

@kevinrose this is only hilarious because my buddy built something similar and launched it 2 to 3 days ago on whim. http://killthebusinesscard.com

@tonysphere @kevinrose seems like a lot of work to do for each contact. have you tested this at a conference or something? how many different modes ended up getting used?

@josephkerns @kevinrose not sure I follow? I don't think we could make this any simpler. It automatically loads your page and all you have to do: 1) email or text the person who your sending your contact info 2) (this is optional and you can just always use your dfault setting) decide to include or not to include your email address and cell phone number That's it. Regarding testing, we have been playing with this in the wild for 5 weeks, in daily life, at meetings, at conferences, etc - I think it's crazy effective and simple.

@bfeld awesome to hear!

@eriktorenberg solid endorsement. I'm going to make one. How does an about.me compare to having a personal website? Is it a replacement or a complement? cc @tonysphere

@eriktorenberg thanks Erik. One of the best hidden secrets of about.me is how large a platform we've created and how effective it is for making connections. We get tons of incredible notes each day about people connecting with other people.

@EAWharton @eriktorenberg I think it can be either but that depends on how rich your personal site needs are. If your page is a simple splash page, I think our service makes sense for you as a primary page. If you have deeper needs, then I think we're a great compliment. There are additional benefits to having a page on our platform, namely discovery and the number of small integration features we've created (ie, you can add a thumbnail of your about.me page to your email signature, you can add a resume [Backstory] to your page, and now you can turn it into a digital or physical b-card). People on our platform are making lots and lots of connections. I think that was Erik's "aha" moment. Give it a try.

@tonysphere @EAWharton +1

@tonysphere @eriktorenberg really interesting that it's a place to make connections and all of those other features. I never knew that. I have a splash page and a blog, but I think I'll give this a try!

@iankennedy You have mentioned all cool points. Thanks. Get flight ticket offer at https://www.puspack.com/

@ryandetzel I totally agree. We, like a lot of startups, had to prioritize. Android is next and we've already started working on it so hang tight, it's coming!!

@ryandetzel Just noticed this on About.me's Twitter page. They said that they're working on it: https://twitter.com/aboutdotme/s...

@imkarthikk @ryandetzel we definitely are. I was just in Europe and my one big takeaway was that the tech community there, and I suspect the non tech community also, are mainly using Android. So, we're all in on making the app available on that platform. It was just a question of focus and resources but now we're in development flow :)

@chdrakon Thanks Christian, much appreciated. Would love more feedback from you given you've been thinking about the space for a while.

@tonysphere I'm very happy to talk more about my experiences with that product here or via email. I do have some interesting stories to share. :) - Need some time though. I'll get back to you in the next couple of days.

@tonysphere Tony when would we be able to change location to allow for phone number formatting? Currently not possible to use intro as it won't accept zeros for first digit and messes up the number big time for us here down under in Australia. We need xxx-xx-xxxx-xxxx for landlines (country area then number) and xxxx-xxx-xxx for mobiles to make any sense. Love the look of it and can't wait to try it.