glitter app
The new iOS app Glitter was designed for making and sharing "personal trading cards" from your smartphone. Glitter

Running out of business cards or forgetting them completely -- it happens. But trading phones to exchange contact details at formal networking events can be awkward.

Meet Glitter, the iOS app that lets users create a mobile card with personal information and creative elements that can be shared with others via email, text and social networks. It’s fun and quick to set up. Users sign up with an email address and a password, then create a username and select a photo.

You drag “ingredients” into your card -- features like text, name, URL, photo, background and GIF. You can also add your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat accounts, email, phone number and address. You can create as many cards as you’d like on the app.

Glitter does not require the people you’re going to share the card with to have the app. Instead, you can send out the card as a link, and it will then download to that person’s smartphone as an image. If the person does have Glitter, the card will be added to his/her collection.

business card app
Glitter lets you choose from a number of "ingredients" (left) to "bake" into your mobile trading card (middle). Cards you receive are added to your collection (right). Glitter Screenshots

The app was not intended to be a “true business card app,” Glitter co-founder Christian Rocha told TechCrunch. Rather, Glitter can be for sharing any type of “personal trading card.”

“With Glitter you’ll make bite-sized digital cards to express every facet of your personality. Looking for dates? Have a Glitter card ready. Doing business? Make a separate card for that sort of thing. And don’t forget to add a chart. Love puppies? Make a card to let your pals know,” the Glitter website reads.

Glitter is not the first app to try "disrupting" the trading cards or business card industry via mobile. In 2011, Bump became a popular iPhone app for allowing users to easily transfer contact information and photos between smartphones. Google acquired and then discontinued the app in 2014. Both iPhone and Android have their own sharing functions with AirDrop for iOS and Bluetooth.

Glitter was created out of NYC-based startup and venture capital company Betaworks, the same company that's behind GIF search engine Giphy, mobile game Dots and URL shortener Bitly.

For now, Glitter is completely free and available only for iOS. Future versions could include in-app purchases such as more fonts and picture elements, TechCrunch reports.