Have you ever come back from a conference or a networking event with a stack of business cards and toiled away entering the info into your address book, or maybe more likely, threw them in a drawer? I’m here to tell you that there’s an easier way!  Here are two apps that work using your smartphone’s camera to automatically pull information like name, address, phone numbers, email, and website.

CamCard Lite. The program struggled to recognize business cards until I moved the card and phone right underneath my desk lamp, but worked otherwise ok in the living room by a large window. The results weren’t exactly accurate as you can see by the following images. Not a single field of information populated 100% accurate, although using an app like this would still beat typing in all of that information into my address book manually.

Google Googles This was debuted in December of 2009 and isn’t only a business card scanning app, but it works fantastically well as one. You can use it to take pictures of nearly anything: logos, barcodes on things like books and DVDs, landmarks, and the app will attempt to gather more info. It didn’t have the same struggle that CamCard Lite did in my dimly light office since it triggered the flash on my smartphone. The results on the same business card were also 100% accurate as you can see in this picture!

Although I was surprised by how effective CamCard Lite was initially, once I tried Google Googles the victor in the battle for dominant business card scanning mobile app was decidedly clear. Hail to the Chief of search!

Download app: Google Googles

Available on: Android, coming soon to iPhone

Cost: free

CamCard Lite

Download app: search “CamCard Lite” in Android Marketplace
Available on: Android

Cost: free