Your Address Book and Inbox: Together, at Last (via Rapportive Blog)

If you have never heard of Rapportive, you should definitely try it! It is basically the best contact management application for Gmail around. It allows you to connect on other networks with the people you communicate with via email. For more information visit http://rapportive.com. Rapportive is a great asset, but yesterday it launched a new feature of Google Contacts integration. This means their contact information that is in Google Contacts will now be displayed along side their email in Rapportive. It's quite nifty. Instead of having to go back and find that business card or sticky note that you filed away, it will now be right there for you to access! This not only is useful to businesses, but also students, as they deal with lots of contact information with future employers, contacts for internships, instructors (office numbers), etc.

Here's a clip from Rapportive's Blog:

Business cards have names and photos. They have jobs and companies. They have email addresses, phone numbers, and wide variety of usernames. Business cards are easy to exchange, remind you who people are, and help you reconnect with your contacts later. 

Business cards are Rapportive for real life. 

I get plenty of cards, so I have a small process to deal with them. I'll fire up Google Contacts, type up the details, then head over to Gmail and send a quick note. It's usually something like "it was great to meet you" or "let's grab a coffee" or "you should totally meet Sam".
Except there's a problem. When a contact emails you back, you don't see their business card. If you want to phone them, you have to jump from Gmail to Google Contacts via a series of clicks just to even see their number. This is crazy, especially considering you've spent time to type up the card! Enough of this craziness: we have now integrated Google Contacts into Rapportive. 

To see your Google Contacts in Rapportive, click "Connect my networks" in the Rapportive menu at the top of Gmail, and then click "Sign in with Google". 

Over the next hour, any photos, phone numbers and occupations in your Google Contacts will be seamlessly integrated into your Rapportive sidebar. For example, if you had my contact details, you would see my numbers as in the sidebar below.  (Please don't all call at once!) 

It gets better. If any of your contacts have multiple email addresses, we'll merge their Rapportive profiles into one. For example, suppose you know two email addresses for one of your contacts: john.smith@gmail.com and john@acme.com. Through the gmail.com address, we find John's Facebook account; through the acme.com address, we find John's LinkedIn account. When John next emails you from either address, Rapportive will show you a complete profile with information from Facebook and LinkedIn. 

Of course, your contacts remain absolutely confidential: their photos, phone numbers, and any merged profiles are only ever shown to you. 

Enjoy! 

Not yet using Rapportive?  Get it free at rapportive.com.

via blog.rapportive.com

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• Gmail and Google Contacts, brought together by Rapportive (YC S10) (rapportive.com)
• Rapportive Connects Gmail Inbox & Address Book (mashable.com)