Imagine a networking event without business cards. Instead of a pocketful of cards, all you would need is a smartphone. You don’t have to imagine it. With the popularity of iPhones and Androids among business people, it’s already possible.

Bump, an app for iPhones and Androids, lets you exchange your contact information by lightly bumping your smartphone-holding hand with that of another Bump user. Bump automatically adds contact information, including profile photos, to each other’s Contacts. You can create profiles that are appropriate for different situations, like having business cards for every occasion. You can also use Bump to connect on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, exchange photos and share apps.

If you’re a Blackberry user, don’t worry. Bump has plans for a Blackberry version, too.

Another app that’s for the iPhone only, SnapDat, allows you to design a graphical virtual business card that you can send to someone’s SnapID. It’s not quite as instantaneous or simple as Bump, but the designs mimic traditional business cards.

Business card scanners are hot items, but sometimes fall short on accuracy. Graphics, typefaces or unusual placement of text can all turn a scanner’s results into gibberish. Smartphone apps include business card scanners that have the same problem.

Then we have the perennial question: What should you do with all the business cards you’ve scanned or entered into your database? A Rolodex seems redundant. If you network frequently, those beautiful cards quickly take up precious storage space.

Since the 1990s, Vcards (virtual business cards) have been used as email attachments to effortlessly integrate contact information with the recipient’s address book. Yet Vcards haven’t made a dent in business card sales. After all, how can you send Vcards without knowing your contacts’ email addresses? You need a business card. Or do you?

Did you know that business cards evolved from social visiting cards created in fifteenth century China? Could a tradition seven centuries old die out?

What do you think? How likely is the extinction of physical business cards? What are the pros and cons of the new smartphone apps?

Let’s not forget the most important question: How would Bob draw for door prizes at biz2biz connections events without business cards?