Bulletin Bored?

You know how, when you go to eat a restaurant in a smaller town -- or you go to the laundromat -- there aren't just fliers about area events posted, but business cards thumb tacked to a cork board? Or when you go to a bodega -- or convenience store -- and there's a random stack of business cards for the local house framer set by the register? Sometimes, those are left by guerrilla marketers. And sometimes, they're conscious marketing placements by the proprietors.

What if the business card -- that ubiquitous calling card for proprietors everywhere -- became the standard format for advertising? Enter the Bla.st Notice Board. This online repository of business card-sized ad inventory "made by some guy in New Zealand" shows promise... if not just as a visual archive. I get the sense that the ads aren't business cards per se, but card-sized ads, but I love the idea of a scattergraph of business cards -- scanned just as they are -- online.

According to the launch news release, Bla.st is the "first online visual advertising directory of its kind" -- bringing the neighborhood notice board to the Web.

We'll have to see how it develops!