Central addressbook implementation

[LPent]

I would like to start a sort of "brainstorm topic" here.
I have always been disappointed by the fact that the way we store addresses and related informations about our contacts in such a clumsy and inefficient way on our computers.
The way I see it is that the benefit of a computer should be that we only have to input our data once and we can retrieve it as much as we want.
Why do we have to keep upkeep our contacts in so many programs? I have addresses in my windows address book, my thinderbird address book, Skype, MSN and on hardcopy in cases where I need to lookup an address in a program that does not support these books.
Why is there no standard, centralised address book? One that is accessible by ALL programs and that can be synchronised on portable devices and networks?
The W3C manages to standardise the web (not 100% but still it is generally successful) so I would like to see if we could make a standard for address books.

An address book is such an important feature, especially these days where our computers are used more and more as tools for socialising. I don't understand why it should remain decentralised.

I would like to start a campaign and the development of an address book app. that hopefully will be picked up by software manufacturers as a standard. I'd like to discuss the possibilities, both technically as well as the pr/marketing side of this.

What do you think about this? Would you like to help? What are your ideas? etc. etc.

 

[58sniper]

Interesting, since if you use Outlook and Exchange, and OCS, you have the same set of contacts in Outlook, OWA, OMA, on smart phones, and OCS phones. All the same. Many third party tools can (and do) tap in to that either at the client or at the server. Those contacts can be exported in industry recognized formats.

The W3C doesn't standardize how disimilar systems interact, per se. Mainly just a common formatting language. Big difference.

Pat Richard
Microsoft Exchange MVP
Contributing author Microsoft Exchange Server 2007: The Complete Reference

 

[LPent]

That wasn't the reason I mentioned the W3c, it was just an example. But since you mention it: By describing the formatting lanbguage they have an indirect effect on the way systems interact. But again, this is another topic.

I get the point about Outlook/Exchange, but the same applies for a lot of other contact management tools. The problem here is that everyone just goes about and develops his or her own view on things, leaving us regular users with a plethora of data on our drives which we can only access from one or two applications at a time. In theory one could simply input the contact data in a text file, which is also readable by a lot of third party apps.

But even so, none of the addressbooks I know of can flexibly handle the complex nature of social contacting. Take a family of 4 people, husband, wife and two children. All have the same home address, but probably different cell phone numbers and e-mail addresses. What if I want to send just one of these people a note, or just 2, or all of them? And what if one of the kids move out, how do I intuitively "drag and drop" him/her as a new contact?

What if some have Skype and others have MSN or both, and what if I want to block one of them from these apps, but not all?
Apart from that, I want to be able to write a letter to someone, call on on the phone and chat with another getting all that info from one database.
Don't tell me it cannot be done. It can, but it is like the browser wars all over again, only this time people don't care it seems. It seems I say, as all the people I talk to this about do seem to get annoyed by the fact that they can't keep a singular addressbook in their computer like they can in the physical life by means of a small booklet.