For those of you who go to a lot of conferences and events like I do, collecting business cards, exchanging data and keeping in touch with people after the fact is a daunting task.
Sure, there are apps who have promised to faciliate the exchange of information in the past, but most require both people to have the app installed or the need to work in some unnatural and awkward way.
And, then there’s card scanners. I’ve invested in three over the years and two of the three ended up in a yard sale not so long ago.
The other one I donated to Goodwill.
Bottom line, they’re not accurate so you’re stuck stuck fixing all the mistakes or retyping the contact info into your database for the second and third time.
I recently started working with a French-founded start-up called InTooch who is now based in Silicon Valley.
InTooch is a mobile application that allows you to instantly turn people you meet into personal and business relationships that matter.
Selected to present their technological innovation with over 75 other companies on the DEMO Fall stage this week, their demo unveiled in the social media category.
Did you realize that of all the people you meet at a conference or even in a personal situation, you won’t stay in touch with 85% of them? InTooch aims to not just decrease that number but improve those relationships using their app.
The great thing about the product is that it’s easy, it’s fast and it’s free. Instantly, the moment you meet, the InTooch social connector exchanges contact information and connects you on your preferred social networks on the fly.
While many apps have tried to solve the contact update and data overload problem, most require both people to have the app
installed for it to work, or they involve connecting in an awkward way.
In doing research about how people around the world stay
connected, they discovered that the majority call each other to exchange numbers in real time more than they connect on social networks and exchange a business cards.
InTooch takes it a step further by allowing people to share more than just numbers in real time, including your social data. In other words, you can choose to connect on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn as well as your email and phone or only a few.
The other cool feature is that InTooch automatically detects where you met them, so later on if you want to select and filter by the city you met them, the map appears instantly. Additionally, the photos of who you met in that city will show up.
How it Works:
Whenever you meet someone you want to stay in touch with, simply call their cell. The app detects that you have called someone for the first time and prompts you automatically to exchange your business or personal contact information.
Works on Any Receiving Device:
You can send and receive new contact information regardless of what phone the other person has. If the other person doesn’t have InTooch, it simply sends a link and the rest is done seamlessly through their social connector technology.
Social Network Integration:
In just one call, you can connect through LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. There’s no need to search for a contact in each social network nor to send invitations – connections are simply established on the fly.
No Need for Both Parties to Have the App:
Unlike so many solutions which require both parties to have the app installed to work, InTooch works regardless of whether the person you just met has it on their phone, making it the most natural, straight forward and easy way to share your personal or business details. Obviously if the other person has the app, exchanging data is even faster.
New Connection Highlights and Personal Match Score:
For personal encounters, InTooch brings augmented reality to your connections, alerting you to all the things you have in common with another person (friends, places you visited, music, movies you like, social network info, check-ins, interests you share) so you can instantly engage in mutually interesting conversations. It also provides a matching score based on an algorithm which calculates the probability of how well you should get along with that person.
Geo-Tagging of New Connections:
Since it’s much easier to remember where and when you met someone than his/her name, InTooch automatically tags the location of the initial connection, so you also can search for people by when and where you met them.
Privacy (Control What Data Your Share): InTooch respects your privacy, allowing you to customize what information you want to share and with whom.
InTooch is available for download at http://www.intooch.com and is free for users. Currently, InTooch works with both the Android and iPhone is in process, pending approval, with support for iOS6, other platforms and mobile devices coming later this year.
Disclosure: I provide consulting to the company.
Renee Blodgett is the founder of We Blog the World. The site combines the magic of an online culture and travel magazine with a global blog network and has contributors from every continent in the world. Having lived in 10 countries and explored nearly 80, she is an avid traveler, and a lover, observer and participant in cultural diversity.
She is also the CEO and founder of Magic Sauce Media, a new media services consultancy focused on viral marketing, social media, branding, events and PR. For over 20 years, she has helped companies from 12 countries get traction in the market. Known for her global and organic approach to product and corporate launches, Renee practices what she pitches and as an active user of social media, she helps clients navigate digital waters from around the world. Renee has been blogging for over 16 years and regularly writes on her personal blog Down the Avenue, Huffington Post, BlogHer, We Blog the World and other sites. She was ranked #12 Social Media Influencer by Forbes Magazine and is listed as a new media influencer and game changer on various sites and books on the new media revolution. In 2013, she was listed as the 6th most influential woman in social media by Forbes Magazine on a Top 20 List.
Her passion for art, storytelling and photography led to the launch of Magic Sauce Photography, which is a visual extension of her writing, the result of which has led to producing six photo books: Galapagos Islands, London, South Africa, Rome, Urbanization and Ecuador.
Renee is also the co-founder of Traveling Geeks, an initiative that brings entrepreneurs, thought leaders, bloggers, creators, curators and influencers to other countries to share and learn from peers, governments, corporations, and the general public in order to educate, share, evaluate, and promote innovative technologies.
