Address Book Programs Need to Network to Get Ahead

LinkedIn and Xobni both say they are working to enable that sort of deeper connection, starting with access to private profiles. Facebook, meanwhile, says its Facebook Connect framework should allow the same type of interaction -- although Connect, announced in May, lags behind LinkedIn's efforts, launched last June.

Both LinkedIn and Facebook, however, are carefully screening the companies using these new programming frameworks, evaluating how much access they seek and how their users might employ it.

They face real risks: What if a spammer uses these features to harvest contact information? What if a rival network does the same? But they also risk going too far trying to manage these risks.

The stickiest situations may arise from attempts to enforce their own privacy rules. Consider what Facebook says it wants to do -- ensure that a user's privacy settings follow the data going outside Facebook's network. This "dynamic privacy" concept could result in such odd situations as a friend's data vanishing from your computer's address book when he decides he never liked you all that much.

LinkedIn shares similar goals. "On LinkedIn, each person owns their profile and must maintain control over it at all times," e-mailed Lucian Beebe, the site's director of product management.

When that kind of remote control comes attached to music downloads, it does so by the name of "digital rights management" and annoys listeners who find that a song won't play anymore. Are people ready for DRM in their address books?

"Interoperability" -- getting different tools to work together -- is one of the hardest tasks in the business. Think of the Bluetooth phone that won't talk to your Bluetooth-enabled laptop, or the gyrations needed to move an archive of e-mail messages from one mail program to a competing application. Getting social network sites and address-book software on speaking terms won't be any easier.

But it has to happen here: The C and V keys on my keyboard are starting to wear out.

Living with technology, or trying to? E-mail Rob Pegoraro atrobp@washpost.com. Read more athttp://blog.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/