Back in 17th century Europe, the hip new way for the aristocratic elite to communicate was through the use of calling cards. These cards, also known as visiting or trade cards, were first introduced in the China in the 1400s and made their way west a few hundred years later.
After a few centuries, people may have gotten the impression that calling cards have gone out of style. Over the past few years, however, these cards have made quite a comeback. Thankfully, you no longer need to be the Duke of Shrewsbury or any other European nobleman to get your hands on a set.
The renewed popularity of calling cards is consistent with the social networking phenomenon that has grown since MySpace and YouTube entered into online ubiquity. People now present themselves to others in a way that has never been seen before.
More often than not, however, people are not so much presenting themselves as they are presenting their online representative. Although social networking probably could never have gotten its start without the internet, there have been too few attempts to evolve the concept to include real human interaction. Calling cards take the social networking philosophy off of the computer screen and into the third dimension.