More Online Contact Managers

Add FunClient and the forthcoming Highrise to the growing group of online contact managers available.

I previously mentioned Big Contacts here and Oprius Foundations here. Check those out as well, if you haven’t already. It’s now really up to you as to when you want to uninstall Act/Goldmine/Maximizer, gain the ability to share with your team, and enjoy more flexible and powerful database features. The services are now out there to make Act irrelevant.

Now, I’m a user interface snob. I expect a very clean, fast and easy-to-navigate initial screen that’s uncluttered but also feature-rich. Of the three I’ve had the chance to bump around in (Highrise isn’t out yet), Big Contacts has the easiest to use interface. You can quickly spot your most recently used contact and a handful of quick links to the left to take actions on this contact, or to create a new one (see screenshot below). But I’m still not overly impressed.

Pretty straightforward first screen, with a quick search box right above the current contact.

I look forward, however, to what the guys at 37Signals put together, given their track record with Basecamp (project management) Backpack (personal information management) and Campfire (team online chat with transcripts), and their ability to build extremely user-friendly interfaces. They keep things very streamlined and focused, and have even shared at this post what Highrise will and won’t be…

Stay tuned. A future feature here at Salesteamtools will be short screencasts on some of these types of tools.