There are a slew of social relationship managers that have been released in the past year and the space is really heating up.
There’s Gist, here’s CEO T.A. McCann talking about it in front of the Google IO conference.
But there’s Xobni, Rapportive, eTacts, and others.
I’m trying them all.
So far Gist is my favorite. Why? Because of its completeness of information about other people it brings into my view and because of its web centricity. Xobni is nice if you use Outlook, for instance, but I don’t use that anymore.
Rapportive is nice because it works on regular old Gmail. Gist just shipped support for Gmail, but only if you are using Google Apps. I don’t use that either.
But which one is your favorite? Have you considered using a relationship manager? They aren’t for everyone, but if you need to keep up to date on a large number of people, which usually means executives, PR people, or salespeople, then these things are really great. It’s interesting that everyday Gist sends me an email and presents information about the people I’m emailing with the most. That often lets me learn about people in a new way that I miss on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook.
For instance, you can see my public profile on Gist and get an idea of the kinds of things it presents about the people in your life. Now, imagine you were headed to a meeting with a VC, or trying to sell something. Wouldn’t having all this data about that person be useful? Also, Gist has a nice iPhone app that shows you info and it just got an update today that lets you import your iPhone’s contacts.
By the way, I’ve created a Twitter list of “weapons for entrepreneurs” like these and other tools, people, and services that help entrepreneurs do their jobs better. Why aren’t you following that?
