The Gaps in the Standard Address Book
When I was a kid, my dad would give me little tasks around his office to keep me out of trouble. My favorite was gluing business cards to Rolodex cards and carefully arranging them. Kept me out of trouble for hours at a go, because my father not only had plenty of contacts but also hated organizing his Rolodex himself.
Dear old Dad’s tried plenty of contact management systems in the intervening years from scanning business cards to handwritten notes in his daily planner. Low-tech or high-tech, none seem to work as well for him as that old Rolodex.
The two key complaints are always space and flexibility. Most software programs have little more than fields for a name, a few phone numbers and an address — if you’re lucky, you can add a website. Daily planners may not even have room for those details. There are no options, beyond a simple notes section for the details that might help you make a sale down the road or cheer up a friend.
One of the reasons that adding new contacts to Dad’s Rolodex was a time-consuming task was the need to transcribe all sorts of information off of the back of business cards before I was let loose with my glue stick. I learned to type by adding extra phone numbers, side businesses and a host of other details to the back of Rolodex cards: Dad notes these things down right after conversations so that he can remember all sorts of things about his new contacts. But those other systems he’s tried just don’t offer the flexibility necessary.
I have similar issues with many of the address books and contact managements systems I’ve tried. At this point, I use Gmail — not because I consider Gmail’s address book any sort of killer app for contact management, but because I use Gmail for all of my email, and the address book happens to be there. In its favor, I can access my contacts just about anywhere I can get an internet connection, but there are plenty of features I’d love to see added.
The Seven Improvements I’d Love to Have Made to My Address Book
- Searchability. Sure, you can search most contact management systems for names, or even employers. But I want to be able to type in a keyword, like ‘accountant’ and see a list of all the accountants I happen to know. Tagging would also suffice for my needs, but either way, I want to be able to find contacts based on information beyond a name.
- Easy customization. Gmail offers me the option of adding my own fields to my address book, and that’s nice. I’d like it, though, if I could add a few fields to the whole thing, rather than having to add it to each entry. For instance, I keep track of blogs as well as company websites, and it’s a bit of a hassle to add that entry to just about every contact I have.
- List management. Lists are another area where Gmail is giving it the old college try, but the fact that I have so many contacts makes the list management process unwieldy at best. Honestly, I’m not too sure about how to make it easier to handle, but Google’s got some brilliant minds — can you help us out, guys?
- Simple syncing. Every time I try to sync my cell phone and my address book, I wind up with tons of information that just isn’t useful. This is one context that I don’t need email address, extra notes or fax lines to make it into my ‘new’ address book.
- Automatic adding. Gmail’s habit of adding every email address that I send mail to from my account is amazingly useful. While Google is keeping track of all my personal data, though, why can’t they add all of the contact information that they have on my friends on Facebook directly to my Gmail address book? (I’d appreciate all those other social networking sites, too!) Easy importing of hard copy information — business cards, scribbled notes, etc. — would be great, as well.
- Updating systems. As it is, I have to go through my address book entry by entry to check if an email address or phone number is good. If the whole system is computerized, though, there should be a simple way to check all of the email addresses in one go. I’d like a simple report saying that a certain set of contacts has defunct information so that I only need to bother a few people. I’d also like a quick and easy way to delete all addresses from a given domain, such as the inevitable pile of Craigslist addresses that accumulate in my contact book solely because of responses I send to job listings.
- Personalized updates. This is pure wishful thinking, I know, but the fact that Gmail displays the last several email exchanges you’ve had with a particular contact got me thinking: why can’t the last couple of updates to a person’s blog or other updates about the person pop up as well? Alright, I admit I’m unlikely to get this one, but if I’m making a wish list of abilities for a contact management system, I think I’m allowed to list a couple never-gonna-gets.
So, what capabilities are missing from your address book? What ability would turn your contact management system into the perfect tool?
WRITER'S BIOGRAPHY
Thursday Bram
Thursday Bram is a freelance journalist of over five years experience. She studied Communications at the University of Tulsa and is currently working on her MA in Communication Design. Her work has focused primarily on entrepreneurial topics. More information about Thursday is available at thursdaybram.com.
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Comments
Shana Albert says on March 6th, 2008 at 9:38 am
Oh, this post brought some really awesome memories back for me. I remember my sister and I hanging out at my dad’s office while he finished up his work. His office had some really cool business equipment that was so much fun to play with. Business machines and such that you can no longer find around any office in this day and age.
Great post as always.
Stephanie says on March 6th, 2008 at 10:18 am
If I were to add my own item to your list would be the ability to handle families. With most systems I’ve used, I have to create separate records for each member of the family if I want to add home and work contact information, birthdays, email, etc. Relational databases exist — why contact management software insists on being flat, I just don’t know.
Nitin Badjatia says on March 6th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
You can add the ability to add notes for each contact to your list. Not a note field, but some sort of date stamped note feature. That way, any non-email interaction with the person could also be recorded in one location.
Just a thought….
Ben says on March 6th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
MS Outlook 2007 + Xobni (Outlook plugin) + Blackberry sync can do nearly all of this.
Outlook contacts are searchable and taggable. Custom fields can be added at the individual contact level or at the folder level. It’s list management is pretty thorough as well.
Xobni will automatically pick up phone numbers, addresses, etc. from emails and insert them into the contact. It can also mass email your contacts asking for information you don’t have (”I noticed I don’t have your phone number in my address book…”) then automatically add the info when the contact replies.
BackBerry sync lets you sync fields at a very granular level.
GMail is a toy. If you’re serious about email and contacts you need a thick client.
Pruthvi says on March 6th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
I receive emails from different e-mail address from same person. In Gmail, linking separate e-mail addresses from one contact is not easy. For example, when you want to save a contact, there is no option to add it to existing contact. Similarly if you have made two entries for one contact with two different e-mail addresses then copying information from one entry to another entry is equally difficult.
Dennis Ray Nestor Jr. says on March 6th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
I hope Linkedin or the gmail team is reading…
Thursday says on March 6th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Pruthvi, Stephanie,
Great points — I’d love to have both of those options built into my address book.
Ben,
I have to dispute the universal usefulness of Outlook — I switch between computers regularly and need easy access at each system. Web-based really is a crucial feature for some of us.
Deano says on March 6th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
I have been successfully using Plaxo and their pulse product to aggregate and provide cross app/machine address book, tasks and calendar, it works a treat!
Ben says on March 6th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Thursday,
If you are already sync’ing to a blackberry phone, just sync @ each computer.
Plaxo is also an option. You can use Outlook on your primary machine for the heavy lifting, but still access contacts using the web based interface.
Eric Martindale says on March 6th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
If my Gmail contacts sync’d with Facebook (or any other number of opensocial sites) and my phone, I would be the happiest man alive.
Johnny Storm says on March 6th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
You hit a nerve with me!
I just can’t find a product that fits. I don’t like online options where, in theory, someone else could have control and access over all of that personal information.
Palm Desktop isn’t bad. I’ve used it even though I don’t have a Palm device, but I don’t need the calendar and there’s no native Linux product.
My favorite would be something I could encrypt on a USB drive, work with Linux, OS X, and Windows, and allow me to print a nicely-formatted copy for my DIY Planner.
David Engel says on March 6th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
I still have some issues, but I carry my address book on my thumbdrive - I use the KDE Platform independent PIM. It is not perfect, by far, but I don’t have to worry about the computer I am on or access to the internet.
Tim says on March 7th, 2008 at 6:45 am
I don’t see the problem with having a full contact card on my cell-phone. I’m using a smart phone now, but even when I was using a regular cell, there was room for websites, email and notes.
Isn’t it better to have too much info than not enough, in this case anyway?
One of these days I’m going to set up voip. I like talking with a headset, especially if I’m likely to need to type, then I have both hands free.
Jay, writer Memberspeed.com says on March 7th, 2008 at 7:29 am
I’m not even sure I know what a rolodex looks like anymore. Anyway, I won’t be surprised to see all of these elements in the next contact management application. People always try to innovate and add all sorts of options to existing systems. Who knows? Gmail just might pick up on this post!
Harry says on March 7th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
A feedreader (Like Google Reader) would do for your last idea, no?
Thursday says on March 7th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Harry,
It definitely would… I’m just lazy enough to want everything on one page.
Elphizmo says on March 7th, 2008 at 10:50 pm
Great, we have a whole lot of problems. What’s the solution?
Anyone know of some applications (web based or otherwise) which do most of what would make the perfect address book?
ackbar says on March 8th, 2008 at 4:33 am
I add things like ACCOUNTANT to the notes section of each contact in outlook.
This allows me to search exactly a you describe….
both on outlook and on my syncronised devices..
bex says on March 9th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
It sounds like you need to use plaxo (plaxo.com). It will do everything (or almost everything) you want. On top of that it will sync the gmail address book, etc so you can still use your address book of choice for email.
[I do not work for plaxo or have any investment with them]
PS: @Johnny Storm and others - it will sync with many desktop applications, but you are right ultimately you are giving up control of your data. Unfortunately, with everyone crazy about web apps right now, data control is a lost cause.
Joe says on March 30th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
Great ink!
My 2 cents, you are in dire need of a Blackberry.
It will change your life.
nairbv says on April 1st, 2008 at 8:53 am
yeah, … I’ve been thinking about this problem quite a bit too. I tried plaxo but it doesn’t quite satisfy me. It’s surprising the lack of quality address book software. It sounds like such a simple problem, … but then all the implementations are terrible.
plus, I want a better desktop app. I want something that I can quickly enter data, organize things like tags, and do it all locally. Sure, plaxo will sync with other desktop apps, … but there aren’t any good desktop apps.
and you have to pay plaxo if you want to be able to do simple things like merging existing contacts. basic functionality is extremely difficult if you don’t subscribe to their pay service. I have lots of duplicate people from things like it automatically adding all my AIM contacts. I haven’t been impressed enough so far to pay for their service. I’m surprised they don’t just give us the tools and try to make money with advertising or something.
I’ve sort of been thinking about trying to write an app… but, I’m not sure I could commit enough time to it to do it well. Maybe as an opensource project some decent addressbook software could be written? there are lots of crap opensource addressbooks too though already.
Ron says on April 28th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Just a quick comment. I use the pay version of yahoo because I hate ads. I like the address book, it’s searchable and you can download it