6 (Mostly) Free Online Contact Apps to Consider
July 11th, 2007 (5:00am) Leo Babauta 32 CommentsTweet This
If there’s any area of personal organization that web apps haven’t gotten right yet, it’s the contact manager.
As web workers, we need to be able to quickly add contacts, and pull them up from anywhere, on any computer. An online contact manager that works smoothly would be a great solution for many.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a perfect solution for most people yet. While email, calendar and to-do software is getting better all the time, contact managers are like the ugly cousin that no one pays attention to. Perhaps part of the reason is that people are hesitant to store all of this personal information online — and yet, they’re perfectly willing to put all of their private emails and contacts in a service such as Gmail or Yahoo Mail.
None of the solutions below are perfect, but some of them are quite nice. Please note that some of them are actually CRM software, which is a bit of an overkill if you just want to store phone numbers, email addresses, snail mail addresses and some notes.
1) Highrise. 37Signal’s famous CRM app has the nicest and simplest interface, which is what 37Signals is known for. And it goes beyond managing your contact numbers and addresses: Highrise has a page for each of your contacts, with that person’s info, tasks and info associated with that contact, even notes, images and emails. While it was originally intended for small businesses, Highrise now has a free individual plan that will let you store up to 250 contacts. More than that, and you’ll have to pay.
2) Big Contacts. This is my personal favorite, though it’s far from perfect. The Ajax interface makes it easy to find and add and edit contact information, and like Highrise, you can store tasks and notes about each contact. You can import contact info from Outlook or Gmail or a bunch of other applications (although it doesn’t work perfectly). Its interface isn’t quite as pretty as Highrise, but you can store twice as many contacts with the free account.
3) Plaxo. This popular service has been around longer than the first two, and is interesting because it has a lot of people who love it for its ability to sync your contacts across computers, mobile devices and the web, but also has a lot of people who hate the emails it can send out to all your contacts asking them to update their information. To be fair, as far as I can tell, it only sends those emails out if you tell it to, but still, many people see them as spam. Plaxo has a contact manager (and can sync with Outlook), as well as a calandar and task manager. In my experience, it moves a little slow for my needs — I like to be able to add and find and edit contact info quickly.
4) Zoho CRM. If you’re a fan of the Zoho online office suite, which includes online word processor, spreadsheet, database, presentation, planner, project manager and other applications, their CRM app may be perfect for you. The interface works nicely, and it’s a full-blown CRM app, with campaign management, lead generation, pipeline analysis, sales forecasts, sales quotas and more. It’s free for up to three users.
6) Oprius. This webapp actually aims to be an all-in-one personal organizer solution, very similar to the popular ACT! desktop software. It has a calandar, task manager, email program and contacts manager. The contacts app isn’t bad, with a nice interface, easy to use and fast.
7) Webmail. Of course, there’s always the contact managers that come with Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail or one of the other webmail servcies. Gmail’s is nice as it automatically adds email contacts without you having to think about it. Yahoo Mail’s contact manager is actually a decent offering that many people favor. Hotmail’s isn’t perfect, but if you combine it with the Outlook Live subscription service, it can be a good option if you are a dedicated Outlook user.
What contact manager do you like? Let us know in the comments.
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Plaxo’s latest release (3 weeks ago) is a big improvement on the version you may have reviewed: http://blog.plaxo.com/archives/2007/06/introducing_an.html. It has the ability to sync contacts with Outlook, Hotmail, Yahoo!, Mac Address Book and Thunderbird.
I am using Hotmail. Actualy though using Windows Live for Domains, running my personal domain through mail.live.com. On the desktop I don’t use Outlook though (I use that for contracting email), but I use the Windows Live Mail Desktop Beta – which syncs with my Hotmail account. What is nice about this as well, is my T-Mobile dash with Windows Mobile 6 will automatically sync my contacts to my phone, and has Windows Live Messenger, so its like all integrated, I update my phone, my mail account is updated, and I have a desktop clients. Been using it for a while and it is the best I have seen between all three platforms (web, desktop, phone) – at least on the cheap (no exchange, no outlook, etc)
I also use plaxo, but just to sync my contacts from my hotmail to other accounts, which seems to work well…and it is a good backup
my only gripe with my whole solution is the calendar/tasks on hotmail doesnt integrate with the desktop app.. yet – hopefully soon
I have been using Plaxo for years. The new “3.0″ interface is an improvement, but it still has some ways to go. I like that it now syncs my GMail and Outlook contacts and calendar.
You can always make your own with Zoho Creator!
Try foldera’s contact manager.
http://www.foldera.com/contactmanager.htm
Its free.
There’s also weboffice, the suite of applications include a contact manager.
http://www.weboffice.com
Linked in with the Outlook toobar is an easy way to extract contact info from email.
Plaxo is a nice solution. I’m using it also.
But something is missing as far as I know and may be someone could help me .
I am looking for an solution that allowed me to see through a graphic or a kind of map the relation between all my contacts.
For exemple, to keep track on who gave me this contact and help me to reach this person, who is in contact with me about a specific subject + who is in relation with who about what kinf of subject, etc…
this upon all of my contacts.
Any suggestions ?
I’d love a centralized contact manager that let my mail program use it via LDAP to look things up. But, until then, I’ll use GMail contacts since that’s the mail ‘client’ I use. The problem is that I can’t easily sync those with my phone… sigh…
Can someone actually work on this instead of the 318th video sharing site? Please??
I have been using highrise for a while, but i have sort of outgrown it now. I use google apps. It would be nice to have all my apps in one place. Argh.
I wish google docs had something like zohocrm. That would be sweet.
Oh.. Nice ones.. But Zoho is best among them.. complete web 2.0 CRM systems.
there is another application dear that you might like to comment or write on.. Its not a CRM.. but web 2.0 Online Web editor/Publisher.. SynthaSite .
regards
Deep
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I like the solutions of 37Signals. They are always simple and easy to use, but efficient at the same time.
Thank you for the ideas!
Is there any CRM package out there that will sync with Outlook and MS Office 2007 for offline and online?
I know this will sound cheesy, but I actually like Outlook to manage my contacts. Since Microsoft is so entrenched in the business world, simply managing contacts there saves time with e-mail and appointments. There are obvious limitations; however, it is still not bad if you learn how to use it properly. There are more significant limitations with the task manager, though, which is why I use a paper planner.
google apps contact sharing
There are many other contact managers which offer many other applications like importing of contacts from any of the mail providers like yahoo!, rediffmail, gmail, hotmail.. etc.,
http://www.edeskonline.com
a great contact management tool is web based HyperOffice .
- rich functionality (contact management database, calendars, customizable fields etc)
- accessible on any mac or pc browser
- accessible on mobile devices including iPhone and BlackBerry
- Integrates and synchs with Outlook and makes Outlook contacts sharable and accessible online
For anyone with a team of 5 or more people, some of these online contact management suggestions may be a bit limiting…
Try http://www.salesnexus.com
Keep in mind that you definitely get what you pay for or don’t pay for. Why go through the implementation process twice by choosing something cheap or free? Isn’t your goal to grow your business? Look for a contact management solution that can grow with you. I use SalesNexus, it’s fully customizable, 100% web based and very user friendly.