And watch out who you send an Outlook vCard to.
According to Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, web company Jigsaw wants your contact information. So badly it seems, that it will pay others for it.
Recovering attorney Mr. Arrington explains Jigsaw thusly:
Unlike competitors like Hoovers and InfoUSA, which gather company information by semi-legitimate means such as scouring SEC filings, cold calling companies and asking for information, and reviewing other public documents, Jigsaw simply pays people to upload other people’s contact information. Users are paid $1 for every contact they upload, and some users have uploaded information on tens of thousands of people. See the demo (and note the other demos on that page as well). Jigsaw is also self correcting, and incentivizes people to also correct bad contact information.
If innovative ways to use and grow Internet applications for business are Web 2.0, Jigsaw may be Law 9.11.
I think the business card of the future will have your name on it (first and last, no middle initial), company name, and an email address that doesn’t resolve to your company domain. This is your public contact/email persona. No phone numbers, no fax numbers (can you say “Nigerian scam fax” three times quickly?), no address, and for heaven’s sake no cell phone number.
Then if the person hits your email (like lawman2681@gmail.com) and you want to continue the contact, you can, over time, work them into your truly personal business contact information.
With Google Maps and telephone number reverse lookups, we now know what Sun’s Scott McNealy meant when he said we have no privacy, get over it.
No word on whether Mr. McNealy’s contact info is available through Jigsaw.