Portable Contacts

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Portable Contacts was an open protocol for developers to make it easier for developers to give their users a secure way to access the address books and friends lists they have built up all over the web. The goal of the project was to increase data portability by creating a common and open specification to bridge proprietary contacts Application programming interfaces (API) such as Google's GData Contacts API, Yahoo's Address Book API, and Microsoft's Live Contacts API. It combines OAuth, XRDS-Simple and a wire-format based on vCard harmonized with schema from OpenSocial.

Address book book or a database used for storing entries called contacts

An address book or a name and address book (NAB) is a book or a database used for storing entries called contacts. Each contact entry usually consists of a few standard fields. Most such systems store the details in alphabetical order of people's names, although in paper-based address books entries can easily end up out of order as the owner inserts details of more individuals or as people move. Many address books use small ring binders that allow adding, removing and shuffling of pages to make room.

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The editor of Portable Contacts specification was Joseph Smarr of Plaxo and the project co-maintained by Chris Messina.

Plaxo was an online address book that launched in 2002. It was a subsidiary of cable television company Comcast from 2008 to 2017. At one point it offered a social networking service.

Portable Contacts was used by services such as Google Contacts, [1] Windows Live Messenger Connect, [2] as well as other specification such as OStatus.

Google Contacts Googles contact management tool

Google Contacts is Google's contact management tool that is available in its free email service Gmail, as a standalone service, and as a part of Google's business-oriented suite of web apps Google Apps.

OStatus is an open standard for federated microblogging, allowing users on one website to send and receive status updates with users on another website. The standard describes how a suite of open protocols, including Atom, Activity Streams, WebSub, Salmon, and WebFinger, can be used together, which enables different microblogging server implementations to route status updates between their users back-and-forth, in near real-time.

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References

  1. "Developer's Guide - Portable Contacts API - Google Code". Google Inc. Retrieved 2011-07-18.
  2. Logan, Angus (2010-06-28). "Developing with Messenger Connect: Recognizable & intuitive" . Retrieved 2011-07-18.