14 DAY TRIAL // While the multitude of web services today means that users can fulfill almost any need they may have, it also means that your 'virtual persona' will be scattered across the web and it's hard to choose one to represent you. You could say it's your blog but what about your Facebook profile? There's LinkedIn for the more professional side and Twitter's where the actions is these days. A new service aims to solve that particular dilemma by providing an online business card that puts together all the places where you spend your time online.
Called Card.ly, the idea is simple, to provide users with one place where they can list all of their online profiles as well as some basic information about themselves, all in a sleek and simple package. Founder and serial entrepreneur Daniel Blake came up with the idea after he decided to replace his aging homepage. He came across the page of UI designer Tim Van Damme and he loved the concept and the execution. But after not finding anything similar to adapt to his page he set out to create his own service.
There are a number of similar products but none are so focused and so easy to use. Setting up a page takes minutes and the service is free in its basic offering. It comes with a set of nice-looking themes and after you're done adding your profiles – 50 online services are supported at the moment – and filling in the small “About” section you're set to go. The site also supports the hCard standard and vCards can be downloaded through a small icon.
Card.ly comes with a freemium business model with the basic service offered for free but more advanced features available only for premium accounts will be added in the future. The premium subscription sets users back $24.99 a year and comes with more themes, unlimited RSS feeds and other features. Not too bad for a site created with a $500 budget.