Microsoft Contacts API

Posted on June 26, 2007
Filed Under Interesting Stuff |

Microsoft has this really cool API for contact management in Windows Live. There was a little blogosphere kerfuffle about a few weeks ago over Microsoft’s issues with Atom for managing data, specifically why Microsoft thinks that Google’s GData (which is Atom-based) is insufficient. I’m not going to rehash that exchange, mostly because the level of technical detail is way above my pay grade.

John Udell weighed in recently offering two very interesting perspectives on the debate. First and foremost he highlighted how the blogosphere is increasingly home to the interplay between people who define these standards, and that’s good. This is a good observation, I can’t think of anything negative about the idea that technical standards are being defined in the clear rather than in closed committees.

Secondly, Udell ties the entire contacts issue to the proliferation of social networks and why this is important. I had no idea, I simply thought that these conacts services would be handy for synchronization and integration into third party applications.

"In order to find people you may know on one or another of the popular webmail systems, you’re invited to lend Facebook your credentials so it can probe your address book on one of those systems. I understand why this happens, but it’s totally the wrong message about security and digital identity to be sending to a large community of young people."

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