Google previews updated Contacts interface that blends in Google+ profile info, simplifies duplicate elimination, shows prior emails and meetings
The new Google Contacts: Bringing everyone together — From email to Hangouts to a good ol' fashioned phone call, you've got a lot of options to get in touch with someone.
Context & Ripple Effects
Google is reworking the humble address book: the previewed Contacts update fuses Google+ profile information into each entry, merges duplicates automatically, and pulls a person's prior emails and meetings onto their card — turning Contacts from a static list into a cross-service identity view spanning Gmail and Hangouts.
The move lands in a live race over smart contact cards: within a day of Google's preview, Yahoo shipped its own automatically updating smart contact cards for Yahoo Mail, and Google followed up within a year by announcing the People API to consolidate how apps pull contact data, slated to eventually replace both the Google Contacts API and the Google+ API.
First-order effects
- Users managing messy address books get automatic duplicate elimination and richer per-person cards showing email and meeting history alongside phone and Hangouts options.
Second-order effects
- Yahoo's competing smart contact cards force the contact-card feature set into a two-horse comparison for mail providers, while Google's People API gives third-party app developers one unified endpoint instead of separate Contacts and Google+ APIs.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the address book becomes an aggregation layer where social profile data and communication history are fused regardless of which app the user opens — with API consolidation deciding who gets access to that graph, and the eventual fate of Google+ leaving questions about where the profile data itself lives.
The trend: Contact books across major mail platforms are shifting from manually maintained lists into automatically updating cards that blend social profiles, messaging history, and calendar context.