Today in SXSW jockeying …
Introduction service Hashable, which has the pretty ambitious goal of ridding the world of business cards, is announcing its Android offering and a slew of features just in time for the Interactive party event to end all Interactive party events, SXSW. In case the message wasn’t loud and clear, its also got a fancy SXSW set up on its site, so I guess its hoping to win the app Super Bowl or some other stupid sports analogy pertaining to being the app with the most SXSW usage.
Aside from it now being available for nerds Android users (I kid! I kid!), the Hashable product team has taken a long hard look at what extra features would be useful to the drunken professionals at the conference and has bulked up its core functions of facilitating introductions through Facebook and Twitter, allowing you to search for them by tag and plotting your progress on the Hashcred leaderboard.
Both the iPhone and the Android app now allow you to check into Foursquare though Hashable, and “Check-in w/Someone” has replaced the “Post a Connection” option on the app interface. Tapping on the location icon in the options view will bring up a list of venue options, and the checkin will be recorded on both apps provided you link the account in your Hashable profile.
Hashable has also simplified its contact exchange 
function, known as “Just Met,” making it easier to connect with non-Hashable users by entering in their email addresses and Twitter names. The app can then send a “business card” with your contact info over email or Twitter, allowing you to add an optional message or share the connection internally within the app. The app also adds the person to your address book.
“We think this will be the primary usecase for SXSW” says Hashable UX designer Oz Lubling about the cloud-based contact trading. “Hopefully everyone who uses our iPhone and Android app can return from south by with an address book of all the people they meet and where they met them.”
Hashable, which builds your network by bringing in existing Hashable users from your address book and Twitter, is also taking a stab at its own version of a social graph with the new “Inner Circle” function, which brings up a stream of #intro and other activity of people you have invited into your circle, so you can see who they’re meeting and where. You can also now post connections when you’re offline, a major plus during the smartphone saturated conference.
Interested users sign up for the Android beta here. The app should be available in the Android marketplace over the weekend.
