Do you Poken?

Poken can link you to other people's social networks

As social media continues to grow by leaps and bounds each nanosecond, it is beginning to spawn new technology to catch up with the trend.

Poken is one of the latest gadgets to give social networking a boost as a business tool. Showcased at the recently concluded South By Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas, Poken is a colorful, little, comically decorated USB device that allows you to exchange social network information with any new contact you meet (who also has a Poken). You just link up the two Pokens through their handshake connection tool and they exchange information electronically in seconds, similar to what you’d do with an electronic business card reader only much cooler. Then, when you get to your computer, you remove the handshake arm and connect Poken the USB port and you can seach your new contact's social networks for other contacts or send messages.

You can probably see how it would be useful for people who use Linkedin and Facebook to network. And just maybe by the time they’re in wider circulation, Poken will also be able to connect to District-area networking sites or other popular social networks such as Twitter, MySpace, BeBo, Flickr and Plaxo.

There’s no word yet about how much each Poken will cost, even though Poken is expected to be available this spring. The immediate downside, though, is that there aren’t a lot of them in circulation yet. And, once you find someone who has one, you’ll also have to decide whether he or she is someone whose network you really want to connect with. So, if someone asks "Do you Poken?", you'll be able to say yes or no with some authority.