No business cards? No problem.

My friend madthoughts pointed me toward this today, and it's so awesome I just had to share it.

This has happened to me on more than one occasion. I meet someone interesting and want to swap information. But I open my business card case to find it empty. Which means I have to scribble my information on a scrap of paper, or promise to email them my info later. Neither option is great.

But now, if I have my cell phone on me (which I always do), I can simply send a text message to dropcard that includes that person's email address, and they'll get an email with all my business contact info, including my Facebook and Twitter accounts. If I'd rather give that person my personal contact info, I can do that instead by adding a "p" to the end of the text I send.

Saves time and gives people my social networking info in easy-to-use hyperlink form. I wish I'd had this at BlogWorld Expo, but I'll definitely be using it at the Online Community Summit I'm attending this week.

The only downside is that the free plan currently only lets you use the service 15 times per month. After that, it's $4.99 a month for a plan that gets you 100 messages, plus a photo or logo to include in your profile, and then there's an unlimited plan for $9.99 a month.

I think 15 messages a month is a bit chintzy - and totally unworkable if you plan to use it for conferences. I would suggest a happy medium - either up the quota to 30 messages per month for the free service, or let people do a free yearly plan. I go to maybe 3-4 conferences a year and might use it 50 times per conference, but that hardly justifies paying for 1200 messages per year. 200 messages a year would suit me just fine.

Still, a solid idea that works. Kudos to dropcard!