How Do I: Manage and Share Contacts?
Tuesday, 18 December 2007 by Jacob TomawThe Problem:
I want to keep track of my contacts along with their addresses, phone numbers, and IM names. I would also like to store any other data I might want to track, like birthdays or if they get a Christmas Card. I want to share these contacts with Joscelynn. And as this is Google’s America, I want it searchable by any of these bits of data.
The Ideal Solution:
This is added to Gmail Contacts in, 5, 4, 3, 2, ….
The Hard Solution:
I write this application in my infinite free time. (Have I told you about my new son? :-D)
The Pretty Good Solution:
You leave a comment to a great app for me to review.
December 19th, 2007 at 10:21
Access…or another database program. A lot of work initially, but easily searchable and “update-able.”
December 19th, 2007 at 10:39
I would prefer for this to be a webapp so I can access it from anywhere.
December 19th, 2007 at 14:53
You have a new son? Congratulations!
I’ve had in my head for awhile now a similar idea: a web app that only deals with contacts. I’d also like the ability to group contacts together, but tagging or whatever. I’d also like to be able to add notes to contacts, or to tags.
For example, I really wanted this while job hunting. For each recruiting firm, I’d talk to one or two people, with different numbers and emails. Each firm would pitch one or more jobs. Each job would have one or more contacts (HR, hiring manager, etc). Each job would have one or more “events” (phone screen, second phone screen, face to face, etc).
Keeping track of all of this was kind of a pain on paper. Weirdly, when I started getting bids for work on the condo, the process was very similar - multiple people, organizations, and events. Seems very useful. And even in day to day life it would be nice to group people somehow - by where you met them, etc.
Yeah, definitely the Hard Solution. ROR!
December 20th, 2007 at 7:49
Honestly, Outlook and almost any kind of PDA will do almost all of this for you (I’ve even uploaded data into my phone). If you wanted something online, you’d have to deliberately export your address book and e-mail yourself the file or something, but that’s the only place where it falls short. Sure, there are no points for originality with it, but it makes up for that with simplicity for most things.
Personally, I would be suspicious of anybody who offered to take care of all of that information for you for free online.
December 24th, 2007 at 11:24
I think dokuwiki will do this for you….
December 24th, 2007 at 11:26
Also, I’ve heard people using Plaxo for contact management..
http://www.plaxo.com