Business cards have always been the go-to move in making new contacts – that age-old tradition; you give them yours, they give you theirs, and then you never call each other again - and yet for decades they haven’t really changed. And that's where Moo.com comes in.

Utilising NFC technology, the company is behind a new batch of techno-savvy business cards (due 2013) that holds a whole lot more than perfunctory contact information.

And what that means is the company has equipped each card with a small NFC (Near Field Communication) microchip that will lead the smartphone scanning it to perform a set of pre-defined actions depending on what the card's owner has put in place. It might be that a quick scan takes the recipient to the owners' personalised biography on the company's website, a Google Maps location of a business, a link to an online portfolio of work or, more intriguing still, present a direct download link to a particular App or piece of music (say for a musician). So far, the possibilities are quite impressive , and as needlessly elaborate as the owner wishes, with customers freely able to reprogram the chip to suit their individual needs.

But while the future of NFC looks wholly inviting, there are still a good portion of new and upcoming phones avoiding the technology. Apple, for one, has omitted near-field communication with the iPhone 5, and you'd have to assume others will follow in its wake. Yet, it'll only be in coming up with new and interesting ways, like this, to use NFC that phone manufacturers will take note and really pay attention to the market it serves. Maybe this is the start of something brilliant.

Visit Moo.com's official site to learn more.

Harvey McDaniel