Comments on: The battle for your address book: Will souped up contact apps monetize the data explosion?

By: Harel

Harel — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 18:36:08 +0000

and Fring to the equation
http://talkingmobile.com/2009/06/03/fring-new-c...

By: Randall_Stross

Randall_Stross — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 06:20:54 +0000

Very good article. I'm looking forward to using Palm's Pre as well.

By: Jason Devitt

Jason Devitt — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 22:23:19 +0000

Thanks Larry. There are several interesting voice-based services that I could have mentioned: Dial2Do is another.

By: Jason Devitt

Jason Devitt — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 22:16:19 +0000

I mentioned Google Voice. I give only one shout-out to Google per article.

By: Jason Devitt

Jason Devitt — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 22:15:12 +0000

Sarik, you are right, I should have mentioned Cellity, but I think Matthaus has a fair question.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 20:51:33 +0000

Great article! Just wanted to point out that FusionOne is no longer just backup. Mobile content portability- the idea of sharing your address book and other mobile content between devices and between web and mobile services- will be an important part of the future for consumers and carriers. A network address book that syncs between multiple services, such as the one FusionOne is working on with Verizon, can only benefit all sides in this battle.

By: Larry Lisser

Larry Lisser — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 02:47:11 +0000

Great article.

The address book is so at the heart of everything communication that often its importance is taken for granted. There is a reason though that so many companies are presenting their 'answer' to this problem; the more our contacts proliferate across platforms, the less obvious the answer becomes.

What's clear is that in some way the contact must reside in the cloud and not only on the device, notwithstanding that the device remains the simplest place for the user to manage them. But for the carrier, only the cloud presents the potential advantages you are referring to. I have watched many try to master the sync process and while it can be done in the smartphone market, the balance of the handset market presents barriers.

Mobivox is another player who has made the address book central to their focus by voice enabling access to cloud-based contacts and further enabling the user to complete a variety of communication process using voice activation and the stored contact book. Everything does start and end with a need for an address. One twist in that service is the ability to add to a contact book using voice - very well received to date. And yes, they have learned first hand how valuable the data can be.

PS. I am user of Skydeck. Very innovative. Well done.

By: KMitch

KMitch — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 23:27:17 +0000

There is an attempt by a consortium of mobile operators and telecom equipment vendors to head off the value erosion from over the top ASPs, Web 2.0, social networking and app stores: the Rich Communication Suite from the GSM Association. The subscriber's existing address book as the starting point for these interactive communications that make use of the 3G access network.

By: mjlambie

mjlambie — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 22:20:36 +0000

I agree. i need to keep my contacts in the cloud, granting access to all my communication tools. I think google contacts and google voice are taking a step in the right direction. I also like iskoot, i think it's pretty clever. Also, more recently on my blackberry, the new facebook app syncs contact info and profile photos with my address book. how awesome is that.

By: Sebastien Brault

Sebastien Brault — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 19:42:30 +0000

Hi Jason,

Great article ;o) We should talk sometime.

Cheers

Seb CEO at unyk.com

By: Robert

Robert — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 18:45:22 +0000

Good points but I feel google sync deserved a shout out. It has made my address book a lot more flexible.

By: Matthäus Krzykowski

Matthäus Krzykowski — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:37:18 +0000

Hey Sarik,
we did not mention all competitors in the space as there so many out there. We counted at least 12 – including you guys – & not taking the iPhone/Adnroid app only solutions into account. By which measure do you think Cellity is the “most successful address book right now” ?

Matthaus

By: Marco Ripanti

Marco Ripanti — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 15:06:49 +0000

Great to read this article .. Good job Jason.

But please let me put my to cents to the future of the adressbook.

What about the new release of zyb.com ? What about the iphone app of cliqset? What about our (in the next 2 weeks) firt iphone app of yiid.com? What about .….

You see? The world is full of solutions and our future is not a one and only universal adressbook, but a lot of them

Regards
Marco

By: Sarik

Sarik — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 14:55:10 +0000

Thanks for putting this together, Jason. Don´t forget the most comprehensive and successful address book right now:

www.cellity.com

VentureBeat reported about it here:

http://venturebeat.com/2008/12/10/cellity-to-be...

Sarik

By: drewie123

drewie123 — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 12:50:44 +0000

Very interesting piece. After reading it you can't help to thing that there's a convergence going on right now between our mobile phones address book and our social graphs. When that's a reality and we can truly choose our means of communications, todays carriers will only be “dumbpipes” providing us with wireless capacity.