During WES we mentioned Gwabbit which was a $9.95/year app that captured and updated contact information using email signatures on your BlackBerry. Josep let me know about Anagram which lets you capture contacts from email signatures for free!!! (I like free 
but hopefully it works well)
Anagram has a free BlackBerry app where you just select and copy the signature and then click the “Capture With Anagram” menu option. It then populates a new contact with that information and lets you save it to your address book! They offer the app free for BlackBerry and Gmail but you have to pay $35 for the outlook plugin. Not sure how good it is but report back in the comments if you like it! Supposedly it also works for appointments and meetings but I am not sure why you would not just use a meeting request…
You can read more about it at this link and send yourself an email with an OTA link. Their OTA links are one time use only so I cannot post it. You can also watch a video of it in action at that link.
Features from the product page:
- Available on the go, anywhere, and FREE!
- Grab contact information
- Capture sales leads
- Grab meetings and appointments
- Works with BlackBerry email
Instantly grab new contacts and appointments from any text on your BlackBerry screen, including email signatures, web directories, and search results.
Nicholas Maddix Not Registered
Posted: May 15, 2009 at 2:48 PM EST
Great coverage! Note that we’re at the end of the beta testing period and Anagram for BlackBerry 1.0 is coming out tonight.
Also, Anagram is great for appointments that were sent to you *without* a meeting request, like “Let’s meet tomorrow at 10:30 for about a half hour to talk about the new client”. Anagram puts that on your calendar instantly.
Shaun Not Registered
Posted: May 15, 2009 at 3:30 PM EST
Anagram for Outlook and Salesforce has literally saved me hundreds of hours over the past year. A must-have tool for any salesperson! When I heard about the new Blackberry release I had to try it. I have to admit, it’s slick! Allows me to catch up on entering new contacts/prospecting when I’m away from my desk. Two thumbs up!
jrs ( View Profile) Newcomer - Posts: 1
Posted: May 15, 2009 at 3:47 PM EST
so far works great! waiting for ver. 1.0
jjk Not Registered
Posted: May 15, 2009 at 4:01 PM EST
Direct download link:
http://www.getanagram.com/blackberry/download/Anagram.jad
Nicholas Maddix Not Registered
Posted: May 25, 2009 at 2:04 AM EST
With the 0.9.6 release, this link is no longer valid and direct linking to the jad is not supported. There are different downloads for different OS versions so you must download by sending yourself the download link by email.
Nicholas Maddix Not Registered
Posted: May 15, 2009 at 6:59 PM EST
Oops, I spoke too soon on the 1.0 release. It has been delayed and 0.9.5 is available now.
PDM Not Registered
Posted: May 15, 2009 at 7:35 PM EST
Its a shame that only 0.9.4 is avilable via OTA link (just re-requested). Wanna update the website?
Nicholas Maddix Not Registered
Posted: May 15, 2009 at 8:07 PM EST
Maybe you’re seeing a cache issue? It was updated before I posted the original comment on 0.9.5. Try it again!
AdamG Not Registered
Posted: May 15, 2009 at 8:00 PM EST from my BlackBerry 9000
App has great potential. Having a bit of trouble with html sigs on .4. Will try new .5 and see how it goes.
Nicholas Maddix Not Registered
Posted: May 15, 2009 at 8:09 PM EST
The HTML issue isn’t going away for now, unfortunately. It’s due to the way the blackberry itself copies information from HTML emails… it omits the line breaks and there’s nothing Anagram can do to put them back in.
You can get around this in most cases by clicking Menu when viewing an email, then choosing “Get Plain Text”. You should be able to copy the information correctly from that view.
Buzz Bruggeman Not Registered
Posted: May 15, 2009 at 9:16 PM EST
Anagram is a brilliant application. I cannot understand why Microsoft hasn’t bought Anagram and built Nicholas technology into Outlook.
The cost of the Outlook version is embarrassingly trivial given the power of Anagram.
Try it, and you will buy it…
AdamG Not Registered
Posted: May 15, 2009 at 10:01 PM EST
I just bought Gwabbit for Outlook, before ever hearing of Anagram. Gwabbit does a pretty good job and the price is significantly less than Anagram’s. Since we appear to have somebody affiliated with Anagram’s attention here, would you care to do your sales pitch why Anagram is worth the extra 20 bucks?
I use Gwabbit in Outlook, $19.99, along with gSyncit to sync Outlook to my gmail/google apps accounts for contacts $9.99, and I still come up ahead on the price.
Haven’t tried the Google gadget for Anagram yet but that looks to be most useful. Just installed. Thanks.
Nicholas Maddix Not Registered
Posted: May 16, 2009 at 12:13 PM EST
Both applications are worth much more than their costs in terms of time saved if you use them frequently. I think the obvious differences are that Anagram captures appointments as well as contacts, can capture from any source of text like a document or web site, and in my brief testing was more accurate and refined.
Give the 45-day free trial a spin.
DavidB ( View Profile) Guru - Posts: 1751
Posted: May 16, 2009 at 8:37 AM EST from my BlackBerry 9530
Well 0.9.5 works on Storm but definitely not very Storm friendly.
Nicky_0130 Not Registered
Posted: May 16, 2009 at 12:45 PM EST
It`s NOT free!!!!!
Only 45 days of trial
Nicholas Maddix Not Registered
Posted: May 16, 2009 at 1:22 PM EST
Anagram for BlackBerry is free. Anagram for your PC is not.
Nicholas Maddix Not Registered
Posted: May 18, 2009 at 3:03 PM EST
Just posted a blog entry about the issues some people are seeing with Anagram for BlackBerry: http://www.getanagram.com/blog/147/anagram-for-blackberry-press-and-issues
DavidB ( View Profile) Guru - Posts: 1751
Posted: May 21, 2009 at 9:00 AM EST from my BlackBerry 9530
Sure hope you guys clean this up for Storm.
The way it uses the touch screen is far more annoying the the workaround for the HTML thingy.
Nicholas Maddix Not Registered
Posted: May 21, 2009 at 11:36 AM EST
Yes, we have been informed of some issues on the Storm that didn’t come up in our testing. I’ll add those to the blog. Basically it looks like the standard dialog boxes built into the BlackBerry are not very Storm friendly. We’ll have to see what the alternatives are.
Nicholas Maddix Not Registered
Posted: May 29, 2009 at 4:16 PM EST
Just discovered the key to this issue is Storm’s “compatibility mode” which is a bit of a misnomer. Go to Options (the wrench icon) >> Advanced Options >> Applications and find Anagram in the list. Click the menu button on it and choose “Disable compatibility mode”. That should sort this out!
DavidB Not Registered
Posted: May 29, 2009 at 4:41 PM EST from my BlackBerry 8830
Will try the 0.9.7 with compatibility disabled.
Nicholas Maddix Not Registered
Posted: May 26, 2009 at 8:30 PM EST
Anagram has been updated with fixes for most of the issues mentioned above. See our blog: http://www.getanagram.com/blog/
jjk Not Registered
Posted: June 10, 2009 at 1:35 PM EST
Here’s the new direct download link for OS4.5 and above:
http://www.getanagram.com/blackberry/download/OS4.5/Anagram.jad
hab Not Registered
Posted: July 4, 2009 at 11:38 AM EST
http://www.getanagram.com/blackberry-beta/download/OS4.5/Anagram.jad