The Funware Blog @ rmbr

For those of you that have been following, we recently released beta version 1.1 of our social lead management and contact exchange application, rmbrME. Its arrival last week was met by a flurry of press attention, including a fantastic article from VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi about the imperiled future of the business card.  Yesterday also saw the publishing of a well-commented, slightly provocative write up from the master of button pushing at TechCrunch, Jason Kincaid, this time advocating for the death of those 2×3 paper dinosaurs. Both articles were prompted by us, and ably executed by their respective writers (with some minor ‘nitpicks’ about Jason’s).

The most interesting thing for us - other than the sharp rise in usage over the past week - has been the plethora of ideas that have emerged from our users and the commenters. People are polarized on the idea of an electronic business card (less so its implementation), though that sort of polarization has yielded some interesting gems of insight for us already.

There was a Jon Stewart-quality “Moment of Zen” in the TC article’s comments that really brought home the need for rmbrME and who its targeted at. This is a photo that Michael Arrington (TC EIC) uploaded of his desk drawer. Check it out and read his caption:

Although I don’t presume to have the same social obligations and interactions as Mike, his experience of cards, and the poignant comment he made were the exact reason we launched the rmbrME service in the first place. For those of us in the high-volume social/business meeting context, the process of dealing with new contacts after meeting them has stopped being fun.  You may notice a pattern here…funware to the rescue, anyone?

And while making real life experiences fun is the province of this blog, the sheer volume of activity at rmbrME has necessitated the creation of a separate blog focused just on that product. If you want to follow what we’re up to at rmbrME, go to http://blog.rmbrme.com/ and you can keep tabs on our progress/leave your feedback.

Thanks again, and we’re very much looking forward to keeping the Funware momentum going!

Haven’t you always wanted a better way to “friend” people you meet in real time? Consider: the business card is wasteful and requires data entry post-meeting. Writing down a number leaves you prone to losing the scrap of paper. And entering phone numbers (or, GASP! whole address book entries) in real time after a meet-up will leave you scratching your head (”Who’s that?”) or punching the air (”God, that took forever”).  

Besides, it’s an unavoidable conclusion that meeting people in real-life, and making new friends (activity partners, etc) is  one of the world’s oldest games, and its most enjoyable. Most of the people who say they don’t play games (or get accused of doing so), actually relish this little bit of entertainment. 

So, it’s with great excitement that we announce the launch of rmbrME. rmbrME gives you the power to send a socially-networked friend request to anyone you meet in real life using just SMS.  When you meet someone in real life, simply send their phone number or email address to 762763 (RMBRME) and they will receive an instant invitation to connect to you on any/every social network (FB, Myspace, Linkedin, etc) you choose. The services works with all mobile phones, carriers and social networks and requires no downloads or subscriptions. 

You can now check out the site at rmbrME.com and sign up for your account. Let us know what you think! I’ll update the blog periodically with news coverage of our launch and more info about the site. There’s also a ton of additional Funware news to come, so stay tuned!