RmbrME's mobile business card hopes to replace paper
Innovation is occurring at a rapid pace in mobile applications, and three young companies at the Dow Jones VentureWire Technology Showcase demonstrated some of this original thinking
One hopes to eliminate the need for paper business cards while another makes shopping for cell phone plans more efficient.
The third wants to let companies create their own applications for cell phones. Think of an Amazon.com widget designed to simplify shopping.
“The business card needs some revolutionary thinking,” says Gabe Zichermann, CEO of rmbrME, the designer of a free cell-phone business card application released for the iPhone last month.
About 12,000 users showed up in three weeks, and Zichermann said the goal is to interest people in premium, paid applications so that his New York company can build a revenue base. One such app would permit custom business cards for $5 a year.
Zichermann said he plans to enable users to capture the cards in a customer relationship management (CRM) database where they can be used by sales people. The rmbrME applications use test messaging or e-mail to send the business cards.
SmartTouch Mobile is building cell phone single-purpose applications for companies that it believes will simplify commerce and other mobile Web activities. But instead of replying on a browser and a phone’s data plan, the applications run using text messaging.
“There are lots of companies out there leveraging data, but none building a widget platform that leverages text messaging,” says John McDonough, CEO.
Already the company has an application for Amazon.com, Facebook, the Weather Channel and MySpace. Now the two-year-old La Jolla, Calif., startup hopes to strike revenue sharing arrangements with businesses for providing its service.
Replying on text messaging allows the applications to work with the vast majority of phones that don’t have data plans, says McDonough.
BillShrink of Redwood City is pioneering a Web site to allow people to compare the cost and coverage of cell-phone plans and credit cards. More features are coming – perhaps enabling the comparison of mortgages.
The wireless service plans service launched six months ago and the credit card service last month. Site visitors total 60,000 a month, says Petr Phom, CEO.
