Conversation of the Day: Facebook is the New Address Book
When it comes to personal information like email, calendars, to- do's and notes, I have super systems that keep all the data up-to-date by leveraging the cloud and keeping local copies on my computers and my iPhone. Evernote, for example, is one great tool that I use to stay in sync.
Contact information, on the other hand, has always been a pain.
The basic tools like the address book that comes with your computer are outdated. People move around too much these days. Enter social networking. The problem is keeping your information in sync everywhere.
The new version of Facebook for the iPhone, however, at least for me is finally a workable solution because it has an integrated dialer. Part of the reason it works is because I limit my Facebook friends only to those whom I have met or corresponded.
Like Robert Scoble, I wish that people would add their phone numbers to their Facebook accounts so that this becomes the ultimate solution. It sounds like soon Facebook will keep your contact information in sync, which will make this all easier. However, all of this depends on if people keep their contact info current - which isn't a given because of privacy concerns.
For more, see Robert Scoble's thread on Friendfeed, which I have added below. What's your view?
Comments 14 Comments
You can limit whom your friends with on Facebook, but those apps still give third parties loose access to your details.
Right?
With the new app and auto-dial I expect to only add crucial people's numbers to my address book, those I communicate with more than a few times per month. Other than that, Facebook it is.
If Facebook goes down, then what? And afterall it's free, so how much can you complain if that does happen. Alot of people were affected by the recent Twitter outage, it can and will happen at some point.
"When it comes to personal information like email, calendars, to- do's and notes, I have super systems that keep all the data up-to-date by leveraging the cloud and keeping local copies on my computers and my iPhone." I would *love* a post on these super systems of yours :). I have a hunch the way you've set these up have allowed you to be a productive, organized machine! Maybe you've already written about it somewhere? If so, can you provide a link?
I put A number on Facebook, just not THE number. I've had my privacy invaded too many times. Now people can reach me, but I control how intimately/often.
I put my real cell number on FB too, but it's only visible to people on a certain list. Like you and Robert and Rodney. Not that any of you ever call me.... *dramatic sigh*. ;)
@Brandon,
You can block both the applications and block app requests from certain people. You can even mass decline app invites. Or you can just vet connections, or filter access of certain things to a certain core group of connections. Friends, family and people I've done business with or interacted with can reach me directly by phone. Acquaintances have my company email and phone which are both read and answered by a real person. People in-between have a hybrid of this.
It doesn't take long to set up and is a real time saver.
@dealsend,
Isn't it too risk to depend on your cell phone? A land line? Your computer? What you can do is sync the cloud to your computer, and backup to an external, hopefully offsite backup drive daily. My laptop is always with me, my external drive is at home, the cloud is everywhere.
And you don't have to depend on just FB or just Gmail, etc. If I lose everything I ever put into FB, all that stuff is also in pieces on FriendFeed, StumbleUpon, Twitter, Google, my backup drive, etc. The only thing I would potentially lose is my connects BUT if I have them all synced to my Blackberry, I haven't lost that either.