JapanSoc is holding a contest to give away one of 8 11 (8 for bloggers, 3 for Tweeters. Thanks, Nick!) Poken devices to a lucky winner! But wait… What is a Poken? It is a new USB device that was introduced at Tokyo GCM night hosted by Danny Choo and Andrew Shuttleworth.

With a Poken, you can trade contact information with other Poken holders, such as e-mail addresses and links to social networking sites such as Twitter, Digg, Stumbleupon and others. It’s like a business card (or Meishi / 英詩)–except that it’s electronic!

Getting one would replace 100+ business cards printed up on your own or from a brought in bulk from a FedEx-Kinko’s. The cost of a Poken saves the money that would be spent on buying your own business card templates and is definitely cheaper than paying someone else to print them for you (and it’s much cheaper than buying an iPhone). It’s a really neat thing to have. Plus the USB key design is very kawaii! ^_^

To enter the contest, the rules are really simple:

HOW TO ENTER

1. Register at the JapanSoc.org Forums if you haven’t done so already.

2A. Write a blog post telling us why you want a Poken. Include a link to Poken Japan (http://poken.jp/en/) and also a link to this contest so your readers can learn more about it and join in.

AND/OR

2B. Make a double-tweet on Twitter. First, tweet about the contest, including a link to it and a special hashtag (#jsocpoken), e.g.

JapanSoc is running a contest to win a Poken! http://tinyurl.com/cwa9lh #jsocpoken

Second, follow it up by tweeting why you want a Poken, including a link to Poken Japan, e.g.

I’d love to win a Poken because it’s so cool, even my iPhone-owning friends will be jealous! http://poken.jp #jsocpoken

3. Leave a comment on this post with a link to your blog post and/or Twitter username

Get your entries in by the end of Sunday, April 26th and subscribe to JapanSoc.org’s RSS feed so you don’t miss me pulling the winning names out of a pink, empty box of tissues!

Note: If you have a YouTube account, you can also upload a video for the contest and link back to the contest link in the video description.