Pokens are the future of (online) reputation management
JAN
On 15 January 2009, 10.25 h - Seven comments
Tagged with Poken, Do You Poken, Reputation Management and Influence
I received my Poken package yesterday. If you haven't tried them out yet, you should do so immediately. Not only because everyone's doing it, even more so because these Pokens (and the Poken alternatives in general) are truly promising. While the Pokens are marketed as an alternative to business cards, allowing you to quickly exchange contact data and social network profiles, the coolest thing about them are the poken points / ranking. Every time you're poking someone, you get a number of Poken points depending on whether you've met with that person before and things like that. The more points you gather, the more benefits (discounts, schwag, ...) you get.
Imagine taking this one step further: Poken providing detailed data on who you've met, how often (and where). Somewhat like an offline user activity log. Ever since we started MetaTale, we got people telling us online influence is something you can't separate from the offline world. Well, what if you would match the Poken activity log with a user's influence on their blogs and other social networks listed in their Poken profile? That would be truly awesome!
Here's my take: while these Pokens may look like another dull gadget (in fact they do), they may well be the closing link between the offline and online identity/reputation worlds. Still don't want to have one?
By the way: if you're ordering a pack, use the PPCSDP3U8WEJTJWDHEXL discount code and get 10% off.
Seven comments so far
It's interesting to see the continuing merging of online and offline (in fact, it's a distinction that's only used by oldschool people like myself - in many people's experience, the distinction isn't relevant). But I'd really like to see functionality like this in the most common device that everyone already has - the mobile phone. Using a separate gadget and a proprietary hardware protocol to connect to someone is rather old-fashioned - if we've learned anything from the developments of the last decade, it's that open standards are the way forward.
Posted on 15 January 2009 at 10.48 h by Jeroen Coumans - Permalink
It's a logical step that these things eventually end up in smart phones, but what I really like about these Pokens is that they used these funny characters as a metaphor. On the Poken website they also tell you to "go and high-four with other Pokens". That sounds - and is - a lot more fun then just rubbing some devices against each other (like the E connectors) to exchange contacts. A high-four will become the new handshake.
When I want to create an acoount, the site says "You can... If you have a poken."
So no Poken for me yet :(
Posted on 15 January 2009 at 20.12 h by Johan Vrolix - Permalink
Like Jeroen says I also wonder whether it's necessary to have a separate tool for this. Isn't there an iPhone application available that syncs your vcard with other phones? I agree, it's less more fun than to poken with your little critter!
Pokens indeed aren't future-proof. Soon we'll have a way smarter implementation of the same idea. However, while mobile phones offer similar possibilities already today, Poken proves both the experience and community aspect are of important value as well.
You might think that vcards could do this but phones have varying technologies and don't always "talk" with each other. This seems to be a simple remedy-and relatively inexpensive one at that. So if newer and better technology comes out, you haven't invested a lot.
I do organizing for my clients and this is a fun and easy way to introduce them to tech solutions to their problems.
Posted three days ago at 15.37 h by Pam Faulkner - Permalink
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Hmmm, making a ranking system seems also to stimulate the sales of these things..
Posted on 15 January 2009 at 10.42 h by Hannes - Permalink