How Do I Sync All These Contacts?

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Contacts, contacts everywhere, and none of them in sync. As much as we promote managing your contacts online, the 800-pound gorilla in the room is dealing with wherever you keep your contacts now, and trying to keep them all in sync.

Most mobile phones allow you to store a name and phone numbers. Smart phones and Blackberries allow you to keep full contact contact info. But what if a number changes? Or an email address? Is it possible to edit one source for your contact records, and keep all your devices and contact managers updated accordingly?

The real answer is no. Presently, we can’t see that there’s any real syncing going on with the multitude of online contact managers emerging. Oh yeah, there’s import/export, but no real-time syncing. The only option: if you’d like an easier to way to backup your information and manage it more easily, here’s a short list for you.

CompanionLink software. CompanionLink has a series of software solutions to sync a select few CRM solutions together, CRM system with your mobile phone, Google with Outlook, and so on. The CRM systems that CompanionLink focuses on are ACT! and Goldmine, so your options are really limited here. There are a total of nine software sync options, prices ranging from $29.95 to $99.95.

Plaxo.com. Plaxo’s Basic Service allows you to sync your Plaxo contacts with your mobile phone through a feature called AutoSync. In years past, when I used a Palm PDA, I had it setup to automatically sync with Plaxo. It seemed to work well and I didn’t pay a dime for it. If you’re a Plaxo user, this isn’t a bad idea — but don’t count on it working with your contact manager as well.

Bloove.com. This is purely web-based mobile phone management. Rather than work with that dinky screen on your phone, you can edit your address book and assign or re-assign speed dials all online, all from your computer’s browser. The system doesn’t communicate with other contact management databases, but it is one way to backup and maintain your phone’s list of contacts. In order to use the service, you have to install a small, free app on your mobile, and only Nokia and Sony Ericsson phones are supported.

Mobical.net. Mobical is also more of a backup-and-restore solution, but it’s the first online source we found that does this, and seems to do it well. A wider range of phones are supported than with Bloove it appears, still excluding Blackberries and Treos.

DataPilot software. DataPilot software has been around awhile. It allows you to edit and backup your cell phone contacts on your PC, sync them with a desktop solution like Outlook or Palm Desktop, and do a few more silly things like create new ringtones. If you’re a sales professional, please tell me you don’t have time to do this.

UPDATE: Zyb.com. We’ve just gotten word of Zyb, an online backup/restore solution which supports a wider array of phones, including Blackberry support. It also offers Plaxo-like features that include finding your friends online and having them update your record. Having said that, to make this work on my Blackberry, I’d have to download and install a “syncML client” on my handheld; that would set me back about $39.95.

We’re still anxiously awaiting contact management systems that fully sync with mobile phones. We’d really love to see this with the online contact managers we’ve been keeping an eye on.