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Your address book and inbox: together, at last.

I love business cards. There, I've said it.

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.

Posted about 2 years ago

26 responses

Ryan said
Wonderful, perfect, fantastic, thank-you!
Mike Bracco said
Love the feature! It would be great if the phone numbers for my google contacts would allow the click to call option from the browser. Currently, any phone number in the browser can be clicked on and called using the Google Voice Chrome extension. However, the way these numbers are displayed doesn't allow it.
Rahul Vohra said
@Mike that's a great idea, and we've done a few experiments in that direction.

It would be really useful know how you want to make the call. Do you want us to ring your phone, and then connect you to the number you clicked? Or do you want us to use your computer's internet connection to make the call, and let you use the microphone and speakers on your computer?

Mike Bracco said
@Rahul - Thanks for the reply. For my use case personally, I would just be looking for the number to be presented in plain text in the HTML of the page. In other words, not wrapped in the code that presents the lightbox large view of the number when clicked. That would allow the Google Voice extension (https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/kcnhkahnjcbndmmehfkdnkjomaanaooo) to recognize it as a phone number and allow me to click it to call the number. The Google Voice extension allows you to click a number in your browser which then calls your phone number...when you pick up it then connects to the number.
scodtt said
Rahul,

First, thanks for doing this. We've been asking for it, and now you are doing it. Way to go.

Second, answering your question, for me I'd like it best if we had the option when clicking on the number of calling from a computer, or calling from whatever other phone we have registered with Google Voice. That is, make it act like the little "call" button on the Google Voice page.

Really... great work, and keep it up!

Josh said
Does it also show physical addresses?
Rahul Vohra said
@Mike, @scodtt — thanks, that's very helpful!

@Josh, it does not at present, no, but we could if lots of people would find it useful. What would you use this for?

m33600 said
@Josh, nice idea that of google voice interaction.. but don t even think of forgetting the same for skype! Remenber google voice is for USA only. We, rest of the world, use skype!
m33600 said
Another usefull function would be the ability of manually linking a known ( but unfound by rapportive) name to a contact. A TextBox below NOTES, saying: MERGE THIS CONTACT WITH...
John Milner said
+1 for making the phone numbers plain HTML so the above referenced google voice chrome extension will work.

I would also like to see you merge the rapportive notes field with the google contacts notes field, that way i can see the notes that i've attached to my contact. Also, gives me portability and centralization of rapportive and all notes related to the contract.

Aaron Couch said
The awesome guys at @Rapportive are once again, thinking outside the box and improving our ways of communication! Awesome improvement!
m33600 said
Look at this. Gist found, rapportive didn't. This could be solved by allowing manual linking... http://awesomescreenshot.com/04dazr969
Bart Ensink said
So, how do I get this new functionality when using rapportive through google apps with the contextual gadget?
Rahul Vohra said
@m33600 thanks for the example, we totally understand. Can you please vote here to be kept in the loop as we work on profile merging: http://rapportive.com/feedback/532551

@Aaron thanks for the comment, and thank you for your answers just now on Quora :D

@Bart this feature isn't available through the gadget. We are a small team, so newer features will be built for the browser extension version of Rapportive. Are you able to switch?

Sam Stokes said
@Mike @scodtt @m33600 @John could I ask you to vote on the click-to-call suggestion in our feedback forum? http://rapportive.com/feedback/1591771 That way you'll be notified as soon as we make progress on supporting this feature.
Aaron Couch upvoted this
Bart Ensink said
@rahul that's too bad! switching is possible, but providing rapportive through the apps console was zo easy...
Rahul Vohra said
@Bart Indeed :) How many people are you providing Rapportive to through the Apps Marketplace?
Bart Ensink said
well, our team now. And of course I show it to customers. We're a google enterprise partner doing a lot of apps migration projects.

I tried the chrome extension and really love the integration, look and speed. Sticking to that for now I guess.

Rahul Vohra said
@Bart thanks — we will revisit the Marketplace.
anshul10s upvoted this
Justin said
Rapportive doesn't appear to be working with my Google Contacts even though I have logged in, connected them and ticked all the right boxes.

Am I missing something?

J

Aaron Couch said
@Justin the Rapportive sidebar doesn't necessarily "appear" in Google Contacts. It merely pulls the contacts data for you from there as well now, so you don't have to go back and forth between the email, contact info and back to the email.

I hope that is a little more clear, let me know if it isn't though... or just talk to one of the Rapportive guys, they're awesome and would for sure help you out!

caravaggisto said
Hey Rahul,

So, what's the business model with Rapportive? :)

This reminds me a bit of Etacts, which (before they closed shop) would remind me to keep in touch with people in my contacts list. This functionality was helpful in networking or just keeping touch with family overseas. Does rapportive do anything similar? Can't wait to check this out when I get back home.

This looks very promising as a welcome addition to my gmail suite. Thanks, Rahul.

-W

Rahul Vohra said
@caravaggisto the business model is pretty simple: we're going to sell premium features (you'll see the first appearing soon)!

We're definitely planning to help you keep in touch with your contacts. Please do vote for the feature here: http://rapportive.com/feedback/850557 — that'll keep you in the loop as we make progress :)

Lester Ingber said
This isn't working quite right for me. I've Linked 4 other email address with my primary address. I could only Combined 3 of them, and they work fine. The one I can't seem to Combine is an alias to my gmail address; I can't even edit it in Rapportive to try to Combine (I can't see and Edit to even delete it?)?