Contacts Consolidation

I don't know about you, but I have contacts everywhere. I've got Exchange with Outlook at work, Google Contacts (to go along with Gmail and Google Voice), Facebook, Twitter, and Linked In.  There may be others but I spent about 30 minutes and pulled together all my current contacts from all these sources last night. Here's how I did it:

1. Outlook: Exported all contacts as a CSV file. Cleaned it up and imported into Google Contacts.
2. Facebook: I found a post that explained how to use a Yahoo account to import Facebook contacts. I then exported as a CSV and, again, imported into Google Contacts.
3. Linked In: Under the Contacts listing, there's an easy-to-use "Export Connections" link. Exported to CSV and, you guessed it, imported into Google Contacts.
4. Twitter: Found a nice service called MyTweeple.com that has a handy tool to export all contacts to a CSV file. Imported into Google Contacts.

By now you see a pattern developing.  Since I use Gmail and Google Voice so heavily, Google Contacts is a natural repository for all my contacts.  It also allowed me to import custom column fields, like "TwitterName", so I have all my tweeps listed in my Google Contacts with their "twittername" as a Note attached to their details. 

Another great thing about Google Contacts is that it is great at finding and merging duplicate contacts. As you might guess, there are many people that I follow on multiple social networks, so merging duplicates is a must for me.

How do you keep your contacts organized?

Find me on Twitter at @swackhap.