The business card is dead. Long live the Poken! Below is a video interview I had with Tim Njiru at the Pivot25 event held last week in Nairobi, Kenya, at the Ole Sereni Hotel off Mombasa Road. Tim is a well known media personality and blogger who has been diligently and passionately promoting the Poken in Kenya over the past year or so, and especially via social media.

Poken is a nifty flash disk sized device that replaces business cards by letting users exchange contacts and social media profiles by simply making contact between their Pokens using Near Field Communication (NFC) – a wireless technology for mobile communications that is fast gaining momentum globally.

I first encountered the Poken in South Africa in 2009 during a conference and the concept at the time blew my mind away – no business cards required, just a Poken! All of us attending the conference got a Poken and I have to confess I have not used mine since then as no one in Kenya seemed to use them – until now that is.

The Poken is much more than just a device for contact exchange. Having recently looked at their web site, it has evolved into a complete contact and document information exchange platform that is also available on mobile handsets and other types of devices.

My opinion is that for Poken to become successful in Kenya, it will need to become much more widely used at conferences and events. This is going to be a tough sell but then again so were the very first mobile handsets in Kenya, and now we take them for granted.

As seen in the video below, Tim is marketing two Poken models which are the Poken Pulse for Kes. 3,000.00 (with 2GB memory which can also double up as a flash disk) and the basic Poken Spark for Kes. 2,400.00. You can reach Tim on Twitter as @timnjiru or his blog at timnjiru.com. For more information on Poken in general, you can visit their web site at poken.com.