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Would you use it: A new address book?
1 point by rumberg on April 29, 2012 | hide | past | favorite | 7 comments
I've been thinking about a problem I had for quite a while now: Contact information that are out of date from people that I haven't talked to in a while or are missing altogether (like postal addresses) because I didn't add them.

Here is the core idea:

An app that works as a better address book but can automatically inform your friends or certain groups whenever you change your profile (job, address, phone number, website, important milestones etc.). The app will automatically push the update to their address books or send them a notification when they don't have the app installed. The same will happen, when they update their own information.

Would you use it?



I'd love it if Facebook did this. But Facebook don't allow you to sync your FB friends' contact details onto your phone --- it's actually against their TOS for you to automatically extract your friends' contact details from facebook.com.

Would I use a standalone app that did this? Chicken and egg problem: you've got to make your app useful to me even if none of my friends use it.

If a particular friend also uses your app, can you mark their contact details as being guaranteed-up-to-date?

If a particular friend doesn't use your app, can you remember when I entered their details and keep track of how stale they are? If I text them and the text doesn't get through, can you highlight their number as possibly not working any more?


Thanks, mooism2. Good points. Would you use a new app that makes the "search contact(s) → call/write/message" faster and more beautiful?

If a friend also uses your app, can you mark their contact details as being guaranteed-up-to-date? → That is the idea that I want to build the app around.

If a particular friend doesn't use your app, can you remember when I entered their details and keep track of how stale they are? → Good point. One solution would be to regularly send them an email (maybe once every three months) with the request that to send you their updated information (via email).

If I text them and the text doesn't get through, can you highlight their number as possibly not working any more? → That wouldn't be necessary after they use the same network as well. Otherwise: Cool idea, I will add it to the list.


One solution would be to regularly send them an email (maybe once every three months) with the request that to send you their updated information (via email).

I wouldn't want the app to send this sort of communication in my name.

Would you use a new app that makes the "search contact(s) → call/write/message" faster and more beautiful?

The standard ios app is quick and pretty enough for me.


I can sync my contacts on my Android phone with LinkedIn, Facebook etc. So I can see all this information already.

What else does your app do?


A couple of things.

- The idea is to release the app on all platforms. So whenever you lose your phone, get a new one or work on different platforms you can just install the app and all your contacts get updated automatically (including a web interface if you need it).

- I talked to many people about the But Facebook and LinkedIn does that already thing. I asked them if they share private contact information like your birthday, current address, or private phone numbers and most don't. This is where the app comes in:

I developed the app with the idea in mind to be able to delete my Facebook account without losing the contact information. The main benefit of the app will be to have an always up to date contact information, because everything else grows from here: organize a party, message a friend I didn't talk to in a long time, or send a postcard as a surprise because you can be shure that your friends added their address to their profile.

- The app focuses on tight security, because nobody likes to make their contact information public.

- The vision is: Instead of having hundreds of half synced contacts (some have only a website link or an old email address after I tried a facebook sync), you can build a contact network that is based on quality information and grows in quality over time with every new contact you add to the network.


Is this idea like Plaxo?


Yes and no. The core idea is a lot like plaxo - keep your contact information up to date. But everything else should be a lot simpler:

- The address book doesn't try to use automated updates from Facebook and Twitter. Instead it just shows what people add to their profile.

- The app won't try to reinvent the address book. It is build on top of your existing address list and wants to It will just be faster to get to actions (call, message, search) and pair it with "self-updating" contact information.




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