Is Web 2.0 Address Book a silver bullet?

Is Web 2.0 Address Book a silver bullet?

In the blog by Tim

Social Network Fatigue and the Missing Web 2.0 Address Book

Tim O'Reilly [02.11.07 01:24 PM]

peter -- OpenID is a start, but I don't consider it the Web 2.0 address book. Here's what I'm talking about: an address book for my phone that remembers everyone I call, and everyone who calls me, and syncs with my email, which remembers every email I send and receive, and an IM client ditto -- and that uses Google-like heuristics to help me figure out who I want. And then uses P2P and various trust metrics to help me find people who are not in my immediate communication orbit.

I am not sure what Web 2.0 address book should look like. I suppose Tim wants a silver bullet address book that can do every pieces of jobs related contact info. I am looking for such bullet as well. Hopefully this bullet can hit everything in every scenarios.

1. "for my phone that remembers everyone I call, and everyone who calls me"
If I make call out and receive through my PC telephony, this is easy. But I also use my normal hand set sometimes, as my wife won't use PC telephony, and I sometime accidentally pick up the phone for my wife and eventually for me. I also use mobile phone. Obviously, it is impossible to have a single silver bullet to hit such diversification of usage of phone.

I can think some solutions though:
1. Most mobile phones can register calls in and out. So, there need to be a program that can sync the the registered info of calls to my silver bullet address book, in order to merge the records of PC telephony. My handset of landline should be routed to PC telephony. Web 2.0 has nothing to do with this.

In addition, I use Skype for international calls mostly. So, I need to merge these Skype call activities into my phone log.

Ah, can we consider MSN audio chat is kind of phone call?

2. and syncs with my email, which remembers every email I send and receive

Almost all Email programs either desktop or web can do this, as long as the addres book is integrated with the Email program. For a standalone address book, it will be up to the inbound interfaces and outbond interfaces of the Email program and the address book program. Address book can hardly be a standalone feature as you know, contact info need to interact other functions to be useful. If you use only Outlook, or only Gmail, this is not a problem. If you use both, or even more, this is really massive. There might be some programs in the market now to provide facade interfaces for multiple Email programs.

3. and an IM client ditto

Unless the IM vendors provide some API for extracting the log and more interaction with other programs, nobody can do more for ideal automation. Hopefully, the IM vendors will also agree on a common protocols of doing such things. Such protocols should take care of both desktop programs and Web 2.0 programs.


4. and that uses Google-like heuristics to help me figure out who I want. And then uses P2P and various trust metrics to help me find people who are not in my immediate communication orbit.

This is what Web 2.0 address book all about, I regard, though I am not sure about the common definition of Web 2.0 address book. I think both centralized social networking like Linkedln and distributed social networking have their own advantage, it is not about which will replace which.


Web 2.0 is fashionable, any new or legacy applications attached with Web 2.0 labels will be shinning. Web 2.0 Address Book is not an exception. It will have strong impact on our ways of managing contact info and doing social networking. It is a complementation. The real question is: How do we construct better automation of contact management and social networking with the assistant of Web 2.0?