Atmospheir launches its bid to make business cards obsolete
Social networks used to be a way to organize and keep track of your friends and collegues, but with the number of different digital personas most of us now have, it just might be time for a network to keep track of our networks. At least that's what Atmospheir is betting on, with its über address book, which debuted on the App Store today.
The idea here is that you create a single Atmospheir ID that then manages all of your contacts -- yes, all of them. Friend, coworker or relative, if they have even one of 22 different social network accounts, they can find a place in your Atmospheir network. When you meet someone, giving them your Atmospheir ID is essentially like giving them all your social network handles at once, which is extremely convenient if (and since the app just launched, this is a big "if") you both actually have Atmospheir accounts set up.
Atmospheir also has a handy "Introductions" feature where the app keeps tabs on how you met each new contact. This seems like it would be super slick for those awkward moments where someone pings you on Twitter or Facebook and you have no idea if you know them or how.
Atmospheir v1.0 from Atmospheir on Vimeo.
There's also a built-in messaging feature where you can either send pre-made messages like "Call me" or create a custom correspondence. This isn't emphasized much, though, as the app's clear purpose is to help you manage your networks, not replace them.
At the moment, I can't really offer much in the way of opinion regarding Atmospheir due to the fact that it's an app with a very specific purpose and, well, I just haven't had a chance for it to prove its usefulness to me... yet. As someone who loathes the practice of handing out and collecting business cards, the app seems like the ultimate solution to a stack of tiny pieces of cardboard that I don't want in my pocket, but its ultimate usefulness will depend on its adoption rate.
The good news here is that getting an Atmospheir account started is just about as easy as it gets: Launch the app, sign in with either email or Facebook, add whatever social networks or other contact information you want to be shared, and it's done. The app is free, so there's no reason not to go ahead and give it a try, and if you happen to run into someone with their own ID ready to go, it's sure to be a painless process, sans cardboard.
