I have almost hit my Google mandated limit of ten thousand contacts. In fact when I brought in my Palm and iPhone contacts when I went Android, I had to stop at the T's. Now I have several repeats. So in Rapportive, if there was a way to put a person into contacts (and their email is probably already kept by Contacts) then it would be nice if several other possible or similar names came up with tick boxes asking me for each if I want to 1) overwrite or delete because I don't care about that contact or it is obsolete, 2) it has some information in it, an address or note that I want and it should be merged somehow with what Rapportive has on the right margin, or 3) it is a different person or for whatever reason I want to keep it separate from the contact I am asking to add to Contacts. For the merge mentioned in number two, it will not work perfectly, but it will work well enough to lower the total number of contacts and keep one persons contacts together rather in separate entries.

I use Batchbook as my CRM, which already has a basic raplet. It would be great to see more functionality, like updating contact details at a click of a button.

As I see it, the should be a "export/merge to google contacts" , then a popup with check-boxes on what to merge (and the ones that are already there highlighted), accept, and the final step with google contact edit view to review what rapportive did before saving

What will make it an invaluable CRM tool for me is to support copy and/or sync of the notes field.
I use Gcontacts as my main contact hub that gets synced to my Bberry, Norada crm, etc.
Previous ideas mention a one way copy as a new contact to Gcontacts and let Gmail then merge the duplicates, could work, but sync would obviously be better.

I like the vCard idea a lot — I think Google Contacts itself supports three output formats (CSV for Google, CSV for Outlook and vCard for Apple). Seems like those would be the sensible formats for Rapportive to support too. Then you could import Rapportive stuff everywhere :)

This is a must-have. All of the info that Rapportive adds to the user experience is great, but without a way to archive it and update my contacts list, its value rapidly diminishes. Sync is not required - just one-way update of Google Contacts fields would be invaluable!

I agreed that simply exporting a contact as a vcard is the best solution. Then I can drag it into address book and it will sync through mechanisms I already have set up.

*BUMP* (and what Harley and Jack said--they're right on)

As Jack said, Gmail seem pretty proficient at merging duplicate contacts. Of course, you have to specifically ask it to do so, but that's a good thing

You can add the contact information as an new contact item. Gmail can merge 2 contacts for you. (Try sellecting 2 contacts and click on the merge button) Gmail can also start an auto-merge of duplicate contacts.
I dont exactly know how to implement, this are just my 2 cents.

Sam: I think both options would be amazing! :)

Simplest solution: allow us to export the data to a vcard which we can then import into another program (and manually merge, if applicable). :)

this would be my only contact management system, if we cannot have an iphone/mobile specific app, this would be the best workaround to add it in the notes section...

I'd like to understand what is the primary advantage of having this information made available in Google Contacts. For example, do you use Google Contacts as your main address book? Do you have it sync to a mobile device like an iPhone, and want to see Rapportive's contact information on that device?

@Sebastien, vCard is a good idea - thanks! How do you see yourself using a vCard export feature? Would you export a vCard for everyone you email, or only those you already knew (but where we found extra information)?

How about just exporting as .vcf card or something like that for now? Google contacts are smart and there is a function where I can merge duplicate contacts.

I like this idea - I think a button to merge with my contact/add to my contacts