A Poken is a little keychain device, commonly shaped like a little cartoonish-looking character that stores and exchanges information. The information it stores is a virtual business card with links to your personal profiles on a multitude of social networking sites. Any person involved in the exchange must own a Poken. The information exchanged via the primary Poken use is a map of “social bookmarks” and contact information in digital format, a replacement for a physical business card. Touching two devices passes a unique identifier and a timestamp. When plugged into a computer via the integrated USB connector, the program retrieves the information associated with the unique id. The address book only contains the unique id, so the information displayed is retrieved from the internet, and thus is always up to date. .
In addition to contact information available on a typical business card, links to users profiles on ’social networks ‘ can also be added. Some examples are Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Users access a “social” dashboard to manage and communicate with their contacts.
Poken are used for social networking, as well as for personal identification and loyalty programs. Bloggers and social media addicts have taken them to networking events such as meetups and tweet-ups. Companies like BMW and IBM have Pokens at their conferences to interact with participants to facilitate communication and follow-up.
Pokens are sold through a network of resellers and online shops in over 40 countries