Cool Tool: Rapportive, Simple, Social CRM

My cool tool this week (and sorry about the hiatus for the past couple of weeks) is Rapportive.

Rapportive is a social CRM tool that resides in the right-hand column of your Gmail inbox. Anytime you receive an email Rapportive gives a snapshot of where they hang out in social media. The image to the right is one example.

To quote the website...

You can immediately see what people look like, where they're based, and what they do. You can establish rapport by mentioning shared interests. You can grow your network by connecting on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and more. And you can record thoughts for later by leaving notes.

Rapportive is easy to install and comes as a free add-on for Firefox, Chrome and Safari.

The company is not just some creation by a kid in his dorm room (I mean, we all know how that turns out, ahem.), but is a serious business that has already received funding by serious investors, including Y Combinator, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Paul Buchheit, the creator of Gmail.

I've been using the app for a few weeks and appreciate it for the CRM benefit and real-time nature of the information it provides.

If you use Gmail, I recommend giving Rapportive a try. Did I mention it's free?

Comments

[Rahul Vohra]

Hey Paul, this is Rahul from Rapportive here — thanks for the write-up! For a bit of extra magic, try hovering over any email address or twitter username… :)

Rahul, CEO of Rapportive

[Paul Chaney]

Thanks for the tip Rahul. I'll give it a try.