What Is a Poken?
Poken is not another social network. You’ve already got that.

Poken solves a simple problem: How do I remember the email addresses and screen names of everyone I meet?

A Poken is a small USB device that looks like a character with a big hand. The Poken hand pulls out of the body, revealing a USB connector. Insert the USB connector into any computer with web access to easily upload your new contacts to the Poken web database.
When you meet other Poken owners in the real world, you can quickly swap information. No more writing down email addresses or blog names. Just touch Poken hands and connect. 

On the Poken site, you and your friends can view contacts alphabetically or chronologically in your “social timeline.” You can also send messages, group your contacts, write notes for yourself about each contact, and much more.

Choose which of your social network profiles you would like to share with people when you meet them in the real world. Poken holds your contact information: name, address, email, phone # – whatever information you choose - and it also holds your social networking account names. Poken contains your FaceBook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn and other accounts.

If you already know all your friends’ profiles, when you Poken and they Poken, you’ll automatically receive updates when they open a new social networking account.

Buy a Poken in the U.S. from http://pokenzoo.com.

People know I am on a PC all the time, and so they ask me, “Are you on Facebook? Do you use Twitter? Should I join LinkedIn?”

(Yes I am, occassionally I do, and that depends.)

But here is a creative twist on the use of Twitter:

http://twitchhiker.com/

The Twitchhiker is @paul_a_smith on Twitter. Starting March 1st, he’ll travel as far around the world as possible for 30 days, relying only on the goodwill of people using Twitter offering him room and board.

While traveling, he’ll be raising money for charity: water.

In his own words, “For the love of all things holy and sacred, why?”

“To see if it’s possible. Because it might be fun. And to raise an eye-bulgingly enormous stack of money for charity: water.”

Good luck, Paul!