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Denver-based FullContact is starting the new year with two big revelations that will likely make everyone’s digital address books easier to use.
An acquisition announced last week has transformed the Latvian company Cobook from a competitor to a partner. Cobook’s staff will relocate to Colorado later this year to help FullContact create an address book platform available on all Apple devices.
“We both really wanted to solve the same problem and were approaching it from similar ways,” FullContact Content Director Brad McCarty said. “What we found was that the two products could mesh really well together.”
Later this month FullContact plans to make another big debut and introduce the ability to digitally save information from physical business cards on Android. Thousands of iOS users have already signed up for the business card reader app, McCarty said.
Both the acquisition and the new Android app are part of FullContact’s plan to capitalize on problems that exist with current digital address books — syncing issues, out of date records, duplicate contacts, etc.
“Our big focus this year is solving the huge problems that plague address books everywhere, and making them incredibly simple to use,” McCarty said. “We have a big challenge of making contact management - something that’s inherently a little boring - into something that’s cool and fun.”
Cobook and FullContact seem to be the perfect match to deliver on that challenge. Both sprung up in 2011 and are recognized among the international tech community.
FullContact has successfully raised more than $8.5 million and developed innovative technology like its business card scanner. It already employees about 35 people and plans to bring on six more from Latvia.
On the other hand, Cobook has held its weight by introducing products more than a million users have downloaded from Apple’s App Store, McCarty said.
“Right now we have Cobook, which works and works great. We have the FullContact Address Book that works and works great,” he said. “Within the next three months you’ll see a rebranded Cobook application.”
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