Business cards have their uses. Specifically, they save you from having to write down your details on a piece of scrap paper, and just possibly might serve to remind someone that you were in their office at some point.

In many ways, though, they’re as outdated as neckties. They actually contain only a minuscule amount of information, are easy to lose amid a stack of similar ones, and can’t be made to look unique even with the best embossing, printing, and laminating money can buy. Some people do overcome these limitations in creative ways, but really, everybody does business cards mostly because everybody else does.

What if, however, you could hand out hundreds of megabytes of photos, documents, and videos to anyone you happen to run into? In this way, they can review a complex concept or proposal in their own time, when they’re in a more relaxed (and perhaps receptive) mood, and without you even having to do a presentation.

This is one of the uses of Gigs2Go flash drives. Instead of plastic, each USB stick’s electronics are encased in paper pulp, making them more environmentally friendly and more likely to catch someone’s attention. As far as the latter point is concerned, they also come in a four-pack the size of a credit card – simply tear one off when you need it. They’re available in 4x1GB, 4x8GB, and 4x16GB versions.

The good news is that you can order these pre-loaded with whatever data your heart desires and have the outside printed with your own logo and graphics. The bad news, unfortunately, is that there seems to be no way of copying data to them yourself without tearing the drive off the backing, which is a handicap in what would otherwise be a great marketing tool for independent contractors.

Added to that, they are simply not very cheap compared to conventional flash drives. It’s nice that they’re partly recycled and are labeled with your company’s name instead of “SanDisk”; but apart from the novelty factor, this is really just a USB drive in the end.