Business Cards: Scanner vs Scanning Service

There is a lot of focus on hosted applications or software as a service. What's also interesting are companies that take physical products (like food, books or DVDs) and help you manage the data and your preferences about these products online.

Amazon.com and Netflix are leaders of this model. What about the companies that deliver groceries, ordered through the Internet? You pick the food you want and can manage the delivery schedule and so much more.

A service I heard about recently is CloudContacts. It receives your paper business cards through the mail, scans them and stores them online for easy retrieval.

Where are the business cards you received in 2008 from meetings? Probably bound with rubber bands, behind radiators or somewhere else collecting dust. They surely are NOT being used as they should be - are they? Part of the reason we don't use the business cards is the time it takes to scan them. Sure, we could purchase a business card scanner, I've used CardScan for years, but it still takes time.

When your business cards are entered, CloudContacts gives you the option of connecting to your contacts on social networks. What about the business cards - you can opt to have them recycled or you can have the cards returned back to you.

Cost: $30 for 100 cards; $70 for 101 - 300 cards and 301 - 500 cards is $100. If you have 400 cards you're basically paying $0.25 per card. I think the service is a bit pricey, but if you can gain boost productivity and use the CloudContacts to save you time and use your business cards more effectively it could pay for itself in days from more leads and/or sales.

Check it out and let me know what you think!