
On Contact Management - bscofield
http://benscofield.com/on-contact-management/
======
lubelski
Every social network strives to be this for people.

[http://xkcd.com/927/](http://xkcd.com/927/)

~~~
smilekzs
They pack too much "extras" \-- choices for us.

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omh
I think most people already solved this problem by joining Facebook.

Yes, it's obviously not quite the same thing. But it's a central place which
(almost) everyone has joined. Many have listed their phone/email details, and
if they haven't I can usually message them to ask.

~~~
smilekzs
Welcome to China.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
huh? is that china is just like this? or not?

~~~
pinaceae
facebook is blocked in china

~~~
lifeisstillgood
but the clone site does the same thing - presumably at the same penetration

~~~
smilekzs
Different networks _partition_ the users, and the unnecessary extras
"piggyback" on the essential service here -- managing list of contacts. China
blocks FB due to the piggyback'd content -- the "keep in touch" part is
collateral damage.

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smoyer
There's a proposed RFC (which I believe will be accepted before the end of the
year) which provides a standard (assuming acceptance) way to transport
identities between services on the Internet -
[http://www.simplecloud.info/](http://www.simplecloud.info/). It's backed by
some pretty big players and we're adopting it as the new version of one of our
identity APIs at Penn State.

There is currently no mechanism for deciding which parts of your identity are
available to different people, and retrieval of anything not marked public
would require that they identify themselves. I think the ideas below are
great, and adding your friends, business contacts and acquaintances to
different circles/spheres/lists is an easy way for you to manage them. The
hard part (I think) is that identity needs to be federated somehow so that you
know who is asking for your identity and therefore which fields to provide
(A&A strikes again).

I'd encourage everyone who cares about solutions like this to read the
specifications I've linked to, then read and participate in the mailing list
... the discussions are amazing.

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dpcan
This is really just an example of why there are SO MANY contact management
apps. It's not a one-size-fits-all industry by any means.

1) The data.

This is usually just a spreadsheet, simple table, or CSV of names and emails,
phone numbers, addresses, etc.

2) Storage and maintenance.

Where is this information stored so it can be retrieved and modified easily
from ALL the crazy devices and software we have that needs access to it?

3) How we access and use this information.

Whether it's in an email client where you start typing the first letters of a
name and the information shows up, or you get a call on your phone and it
associates the number with a name in your database, etc. And how do you add
someone new?

I think 1 & 2 are solvable with a standardized format and the Cloud.

It's #3 that will constantly, always, forever, be different for everyone. I
don't need to do what the author needs to do in this post. I usually just need
all my contacts in my phone. I've tried to help associates manage contacts,
and they usually hate what I show them too (and many times they hate several
options that I show them). Everyone is different.

Maybe the author should develop his idea. It's possible that his solution
could scratch the itch of a couple thousand. Who knows.

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chmike
This is indeed a general problem. Facebook and google+ where response attemps.
But my impression is that they failed because they didn't focus on this
particular service to do it right.

I would push the vision further. We need a service to also publish, revoque
and update public keys/certificates. You suggest to have this information
restricted and share it as needed. But some people want this information
public like people in business or companies. So the shared as needed is only a
particular use case. You also want access control. We can't solely rely on
sharing limits.

Another thing is that people should be able to have more then one such
sphere/internet identity, one for professional activity, one for private
activity, etc. One should be able to have throwaway identities or network
identies without links to our real identity to preserve our privacy or
security.

It's been some time that I was thinking of this need and of a possible
implementation (i.e. DNS like). I would love to share my thoughs and
participate in such project. You should be able to contact me at
chmike@dupif.com.

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lifeisstillgood
contact like calendar management is a massively Unsolved problem online.
however this approach (a sort of yellow pages for everyone) barely scratches
the surface.

there are many very good reasons for me to keep a copy (perhaps a local cache)
of my own contacts details, but the big one for me is what did I contact them
about, when and why. there are a few services attacking these - writethatname,
ActiveInbox - but it's all a bit over the place. for example I am struggling
to co-ordinate call logs on iPhone and Skype - hell I cannot even get my call
logs off iPhone.

this is not a solution I fear to the main issue - logging contact events, not
updating contact details

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shravan
In effect, we have exactly this if your acquaintance's contact information is
on Facebook and you link your phone's address book with them. You don't need
to keep track of constantly changing information since it's all centralized in
one location. The "spheres" you reference are akin to Google+ circles or
Facebook's lists. You can set the visibility of your contact info to achieve
something pretty close to what was described.

The upside of such an approach is that there is one central point of truth for
everyone's info. Conversely, the downside is there's also one central point of
failure.

~~~
chmike
My feeling is that we need a neutral and decentralized service for that like
the DNS. I want this information hosted in my country and subject to the laws
of my country and as a free service like the phone white pages companion of an
internet access. Protocol should be open and an internet protocol if a new
needs to be defined.

Facebook and Google+ are definitely not the final answer to that need.

~~~
smilekzs
DNS can be polluted. Again, welcome to China.

Something more decentralized, maybe.

~~~
chmike
I meant DNS _like_ in the sense of distributed key value database. It should
integrate authentication, remote modification capability, etc. I wouldn't use
the DNS as is because it wasn't design for that. Such a distributed key value
database is easy to implement. The problem are the associated indexes that
would be needed. How do we make them distributed and secure ?

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derwildemomo
You just might want to read a post I did a while ago about the same idea,
packaged slightly different:
[http://momo.brauchtman.net/2012/02/09/distributed-
management...](http://momo.brauchtman.net/2012/02/09/distributed-management-
of-personal-contact-data/) .

~~~
wslh
I am working on this direction in my spare time:

\- A Web Orchestration Language: [http://blog.databigbang.com/ideas-egont-a-
web-orchestration-...](http://blog.databigbang.com/ideas-egont-a-web-
orchestration-language/)

\- Egont Part II: [http://blog.databigbang.com/egont-part-
ii/](http://blog.databigbang.com/egont-part-ii/)

------
smilekzs
Agreed. This is so common a problem that it makes perfect sense for there to
be a completely _separate_ service out of it.

The commercial aspect is where it really starts to be complicated, though.

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hobo_mark
It's been ages since I checked, but I remember plaxo was supposed to address
this kind of problems, what has become of it?

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spaboleo
Yes, I agree with you that the way we manage our contact date is outdated.

The problems nowadays are:

1) If you include pseudonyms and literally all user data, you will earn the
distrust of millions of users that don't want this data centralized in the
databases of one company. (I know it is possible to figure out almost all the
interconnections e.g. via IP, Cookies, Location data, your browsing history.
But still they are given implicit. Handing all your user data to one company
firsthand plays in a totally different league.)

2) This system, especially the automatic updates via sent out API calls,
requires deep integration in countless pieces of software. Windows, Mac, Linux
and all their ways of managing contacts, the corresponding mobile systems need
to adapt and what about the business sector? You could counter that it is a
standalone app and the user has the choice on every platform. And that would
be the next problem. All the existing services (about.me, dooid.me, even the
Gravatar, or even providing a downloadable or scannable .vcard file or QR-code
on a self-hosted webpage) are not used by any majority of people. Why? – The
majority simply does not submerge that deeply into the technology. Yet another
service that bring yet more responsibilities (setting up privacy boundaries
etc.) might be appealing to the techy-nerdy kind, but not at all to "Joe
Average".

3) What this would need is huge company's backup. And to be honest, Google has
had the chance...but they screwed it up. Google+. The idea behind the circles
is great (hence the resemblance to your "spheres"?). But tying it to yet
another social network and forcing it upon it's users is not the way to build
a user base that trusts and accepts the platform. I don't believe any piece of
statistic released talking of 400 Million registered users (of course, because
they force it upon the Google Play and YouTube users) or the 100 Million
active users (of course, YouTube commenters, still want to comment). If I
check my Google+ Stream it is dead to 95% of my contacts. There is less going
on than on facebook. (Which we all apparently distrust and has seriously lost
the contact management game.)

All this leads me to the conclusion that the introduction of an important
functionality like the one you describes can't be done by any kind of service.

It should become a "protocol". Maybe a vcard-protocol. And in the best case a
P2P based one that is encrypted. Why? \- My user data doesn't change every
second, so there is absolutely no need for 99,99% availability. \- Our
smartphones are online almost 24/7 anyways. And in addition our various other
internet access devices even increase that number ;) \- Ot the information
could be circled around in the P2P-network, highly encrypted. As the data size
of maybe a profile picture and a bunch of contact details is not really an
issue, this actually would be feasible. \- It could be combined with PGP,
maybe even use the very same keys. Which could and should increase the number
of users encrypting their conversations. \- The information would not leave
the users hands unencrypted. \- The possibilities are defined by the protocol
and the user has to set up allowances (sphere permissions) accordingly on the
platform he uses. \- As you now can setup various IMAP mail accounts you could
create various vcard-information snippets for all the various identities you
want to manage. \- A unique ID of course is necessary, this could be used for
the NFC/BT or just motion-sensor/timestamp/location based ("bumping")
handshake to exchange the information. The encrypted vcard-information package
can of course be published directly or in form of a link/QR-code via
NFC/BT/local Wifi. \- It should not be file based to the user. \- The
encryption (I don't know if PGP allows this) should be able to terminate
itself if the user didn't refresh the permission or didn't prolong the
availability.

The big problem is...how can a protocol like this be made attractive to be
used. One would need a group of manufacturers/companies, like Google with
Android and it's web-based contact database and Apple with iOS and it's
horrible contacts App.

The problem is...there is too much money in user-data... So I guess all of the
above will remain a dream. *sigh

~~~
a3n
Yes, maybe contacts should be a protocol.

"The big problem is...how can a protocol like this be made attractive to be
used."

I don't know. How did the email protocol become attractive? However that
happened, I'm sure glad it's a protocol rather than something that only AOL or
Facebook users have.

If you post something on Facebook and tell me about it, I can't see it because
I'm not on Facebook. But you can email it to me, and you don't have to say
"You're not on Gmail, sorry," and I don't have to say "You're not on Fastmail,
sorry."

