The original social networking tool.
These days, business cards are more important than ever. Sure, when I meet someone, I can give them my contact info and they can punch it into their phone right there, or they can Google me or find me on Facebook or Twitter later on, but these methods lack the tactile interaction you can have with a colleague or potential client by handing them a business card (something which is greatly underrated). When they pull it out of their pocket later, they're reminded of your meeting earlier, even if they just toss it in the trash.
So, with that in mind, I ordered business cards from Moo.com a couple of weeks ago. Today, they showed up.
Moo is an online stationary company that prints custom business cards, greeting cards, and postcards. I've not seen any of their other products, but I can say that the business cards that I received are some of the highest quality business cards I've ever felt (because, let's face it, we all know that how a card looks and feels is as important as the information on it).
One of the great things about Moo is that they let you print multiple designs on the back of your cards. This is great for (and popular with) photographers, designers, artisans, etc., who can use their cards as mini portfolios. For mine, I photographed greetings written with Scrabble letters, and then Photoshopped them to make them a little more colourful and fun.
Moo also does MiniCards, which are a little less than half the size of a standard business card. I pondered ordering these instead, but thought I'd maybe try these full sized ones on for size first. I may the MiniCards a whirl next time.
My cards were printed on 16pt card stock (which is heavier than your standard business card), and shipped with a (fairly sturdy) paper box. They're $21.99 USD for a pack of 50. After exchange, shipping, etc., my order came to $30.52 CDN, or about $0.61 per card. Not really cheap, but to be honest, I don't plan to toss them out all willy-nilly, so for a heavy double-sided full colour business card, they'll be worth it.
Now, if anyone is looking to hold a meeting where I could possibly have the opportunity to subtly show them off, let me know.