5 Apps that Scan Business Cards in your Smart Phone

Conferences, networking mixers, tradeshows and conventions all have one thing in common – massive business card exchanges. In fact, it is almost a guarantee that you will find business cards stuffed in the back of your jeans, in your camera bag, purse and novelty bags all waiting for you to shove into that desk drawer just in case you need them later.

The problem is once they reach that desk drawer you will most likely never pull them out again and will completely forget you already had a contact for Canon or any other major corporation right there at your fingertips.

Luckily there is a solution and it doesn’t include buying a business card reader that hooks up to your computer. Now you can scan business cards directly into your iPhone, so you can record your contacts into your address book any time, any place.

There are several iPhone apps available that let you scan business cards directly into your phone, here are some of my favorites.

CardMunch
CardMunch is one of my favorite business card scanning apps. After it was bought by LinkedIn several months ago the service is completely free. All you have to do is capture an image of the business card and send it to CardMunch and a human will transcribe the business card and have it ready to enter into you address book in just a few minutes. You also have the ability to connect to your new contact through LinkedIn with just a quick click.

Camcard
Camcard is another business card reader with high recognition accuracy. All you have to do is take a picture of your business card and CamCard will recognize the contact information and save it to the CardHolder or iPhone address book. Now your contacts are easy to manage.  CamCard is also available on the Droid OS.

ScanBizCards
Another great business card scanner – ScanBizCards offers more features than most Card Readers. As with the other apps you will need to capture an image of the business card to use ScanBizCards. You can connect on LinkedIn with just one click. ScanBizCards allows you to scan both sides of the business card. You can purchase ScanBizCards for both the iPad and the Android.

There are several other business card apps available and when shopping for one you should look for one that is reviewed by hand, this will help eliminate discrepancies on the spot.

What do you do with all the business cards you’ve collected through the years? Are you using a business card app to help store your contacts into your smart phone?