Capturing Business Cards

I am an ardent proponent for using scanner instead of a phone camera in document capture.  But in the case of business cards, I am a believer in using a phone camera and mobile app.  I've written a very long white paper on the advantages of scanners over phone cameras for documents.  But business cards are different case.  We don't capture business cards to save a copy of the card, but to simply extract the information on the card.  Capturing the business card is a transfer operation, that is, you capture the image of the card, the app recognizes both the information on the card and what type of information it is (discerning a phone number from a zip code), and then transfer the contact info to your contacts app on your phone.    For most business users, they store their entire contact list on their smartphone.  Consumers largely do the same.

So now to choose an app for your phone to do the work.  I've tried many apps.  First, I'm looking for a free app, especially to test.  Several do an adequate job, but the free versions only allow you to capture 2-5 cards per week.  If I found the right app, I'd buy it, usually in the range of $0.99 - $4.99.

But I came across one that really caught my attention.  LinkedIn has an app called CardMunch (v 3.2).  Here's why it's so great:

• CardMunch captures the business card and converts it with great accuracy
• One tap allows you then transfer the info to your contact app.
• Another tap let's you share this new contact with a friend or coworker, very practical.
• Another tap initiates a connection between you and this new contact on  LinkedIn.  
• It's free, let's no forget that.  But it makes total sense.  LinkedIn has invested in this app because it has a hook to further spread their business/social networking product, LinkedIn.  If your new contact is already a LinkedIn member, you get a their photo in the contact info and access to their public profile.  Once you're connected in  LinkedIn, you have greater access to them per their permissions.

CardMunch is currently only available on the iOS platform (iPhone/iPad2/iPod touch 4).  Their blog says support for Android and Blackberry users is coming soon.