Since I’m all about making my iPhone as efficient and useful as possible, I’ve sought out apps and services to help me not only deliver my deets to others but also gather and organize theirs.

Kevin Tofel wrote about DropCard in a previous post so I recently gave it a whirl. The set up was a cinch – a quick form to fill out including your mobile number. Then all you have to do is text the service with the message: “drop colleague@theiremail.com” and of course fill in the name of the person you’d like to receive your contact information.

The theory is that once I meet someone, I can simply text the DropCard service with their email address, and my info will be waiting for them in their Inbox before we’ve even left the event. They can then add your information to their address book. By adding a “p” after your text message (with a space before it), you can send personal contact information instead. Both profiles can include links to your social network profiles as well.

Rmbrme by ChroniQL, Inc. let’s you customize and optimize your vCard with a photo and social networking links. Then you can beam your social media vCard from your mobile to someone else’s mobile via text message.

Or you can use their BeamMe app. This free app works with the iPhone, Blackberry, Android, Treo, wifi-enabled computers, and more. The recipient can then use the vCard to add you to their address book or even an application such as Salesforce if they are a hardcore CRMer. The vCard conveniently integrates with LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace and other social networks. Plus you can track every contact you’ve made.

Speaking of beaming content, the BeamMe app from ChroniQL should not be confused with the BeamMe from Beam Me Pty Ltd which is a nifty service for web site publishers where you can add a button to your site to have content “beamed” to someone’s mobile via SMS. Sounds like a nifty idea but could not get it to work at presstime.

Another vCard app for the iPhone is ShareCard which costs $1.99. For an app you have to purchase, I was surprised that Sharecard only gives you the option to email your stats while BeamMe also sends your info via SMS.

While I was sending my vCard from BeamMe, it allowed me to edit the content of my card after selecting it from my iPhone contact list, however, the changes I made were not permanent so I had to change them. Sharecard didn’t seem to let me do any edits of my contact information within the app itself. I had to exit the app, make edits in my iPhone contact list, then return to the app and turn on the details I wanted to send.

Another free app, SnapDat calls their graphically-enhanced vCards “SnapCards” and provides 40 custom designs for your cards. Instead of the on/off feature of ShareCard to select the content you want to send, SnapDat lets you create as many cards as you like, each one customized for a different type of recipient such as the “I’m for hire and here is everything you need to know about me” SnapCard versus the “Met you at a networking event, here’s my email” version.

While I had to type in some registration information to get started with SnapDat, once I was registered, my first SnapCard instantly popped up, fully populated with the information from my iPhone contact listing, and with an edit button so I could customize it. I immediately gave it a name (Main Card for main business networking purposes) and was able to change the background design. Then I just tapped the finished card and was able to email it. The first option is to send to someone else with SnapDat but the second option is to email.

While all of these apps we pretty intuitive to get started with and use, I have to say so far I like the extra options SnapDat offers, however, I was surprised that when the SnapCard arrived via email, the pretty design wasn’t viewable in the email. BeamMe has the nicest looking email. ShareCard, for the money, just seems a bit lacking overall. DropCard is nice but lacks the fun iPhone app although it works with iPhone SMS.

What are you using to beam your biz card?

What’s the 2009 version of networking? How about 1) remember your moo cards and keep your .vcf (vCard file) updated; 2) snap a photo with your iPhone and tag the image, share contact info with Sharecard for iPhone and don’t forget to find and link to them on LinkedIn; 3) use Socialminder to keep tabs on your networking; 4) email a link to an article you read online that you think they might be interested in or better yet, share it via your social network status updates.

What’s Socialminder, you ask? Socialminder is a new Web-based application that is exploring the ins and outs of maintaining a healthy, vibrant and fruitful social network. I found out about Socialminder from several well-connected friends via an email. I immediately joined because they were people who I trust.

I found out later from Socialminder founder John Adler that those invitations were initially a “forced” feature that they have since made optional after some user complaints. One of the Golden Rules of social media sites should be “Thou Shalt Not Force Members to Invite Friends,” and Adler admits his company is going through a great deal of learning as they move their application out of beta. They’re open to feedback and have changed a number of features in the last few weeks.

Adler emphasizes that he subscribes to the “pay it ahead” theory of networking, helping people in your network or letting them know what you are doing rather than asking for something from them right out of the gate. Socialminder gives you the tools to do all three things. It is up to you to use it wisely.

When you sign up for Socialminder, the application scours both your LinkedIn account and your Gmail account (you have to put in your access information to trigger this). Then the application looks for correlations between who you are LinkedIn to and who you’ve emailed. Once it finishes it’s machinations, it begins sending you a regular email message that lists the top five LinkedIn contacts who you haven’t contacted in a very long time – the neglected ones.

Another feature Socialminder recently modified was what they included in those “action reports.” Initially, they listed the names, email addresses and then several “news” links – links to results in a news feed based on keywords the system gleaned from each person’s LinkedIn account. Those links, unfortunately, were too random so they didn’t seem like a meaningful way to contact someone, especially someone who you haven’t been in touch with for a while. Now those news links are gone which has streamlined the action report, but I’m still looking for a quick and easy link to each person’s listing on my Socialminder page so I can optimize the information about that contact.

For example, perhaps it just isn’t the right time to contact that person, and I want to push it back for a while. Or maybe I recently spoke to them by phone, met them in person or emailed them from a different account (Socialminder currently works with Gmail but they hope to roll out integration with other email programs soon). You can make note of these things in your Socialminder account, however, that link isn’t obvious in the action report email. Yet.

I really like the concept of Socialminder and am sure their interface and features will improve over time and as more people use the service. At press time, they had a couple thousand members and had put a temporary hold on new members for a brief time to work out many user-identified issues and the usual growing pains-related kinks. The hold is now lifted.

My favorite thing about Socialminder is the email action report, a friendly regular nudge to think about my network and be more proactive about staying in touch with people I know. Having handy links to instantly email my contacts is a motivator to connect, even if just to say hello.

Socialminder shows the last emails you exchanged with each contact where they’ve found a match. That’s also helpful for those times you can’t remember the last time you were in touch and what you discussed. You can also draft a message to each contact from the Socialminder site complete with some message prompts.

The app limits you to being able to interact with only the 5 most neglected contacts when you sign up. To upgrade to the free full version, Socialminder asks you to select 10 Linkedin contacts of your choice from your contact list compiled in your account and invite them to use Socialminder. I opted to do this to access contact activity reporting deeper into my 300+ Linkedin connections.

Socialminder has other functionality such as the ability to increase or decrease the frequency you want to contact someone, and the ability to change the keywords from what the system pulled to words that genuinely relate to the person. Red bars on the left side of your contacts mean you should consider getting back in touch since it has been quite a while. Contacts in jeopardy of being neglected are identified with yellow bars and green means you’ve been a good little networker and your contacts are up to date.

I’m not really looking forward to the Hotmail or Yahoo mail integration because those are my secondary and tertiary accounts. Those who really know me use my main Gmail account so I’m glad Socialminder started with Gmail. I think Socialminder is going to be one of those Web apps that become an integral part of my work. I’m more likely to adopt anything that helps me manage something in a more streamlined way.

Are you using Socialminder or something like it? How do YOU manage being in touch the people in your network?