ReadWriteWeb

Mozilla Contacts, the experimental project from the organization behind the Firefox web browser, has released a new version of their Contacts add-on which introduces Facebook integration. Previously, Mozilla Contacts allowed you to import your various address books spread out across the Web (think: multiple email accounts, Twitter friends, LinkedIn colleagues, Plaxo contacts, Mac OS X address book, etc.) into the Web browser itself - in this case, obviously, Firefox. Once there, the combined address book information could be used in form autocompletion everywhere across the Web and more.

Now, an updated version of Mozilla Contacts (download link) introduces a number of new features, most notably integration with Facebook Contacts and something called a "person URL."

Currently, your contacts live in address books that are distributed all over the Internet and your desktop. Because of this, chances are that you have numerous address books on the web that are often "inconsistent and disjointed." Contacts, a new Mozilla Labs project, wants to put an end to this. The Contacts addon creates a local database for all your email and Twitter contacts that can then be used by your browser and any website that supports Contacts' API.

One of the biggest features of the highly-anticipated Palm Pre is the contact and calendar management system called "Synergy." With this new functionality, your Facebook, Google, AIM, and/or Microsoft Exchange contact data is merged together, de-duped, and made available to you within your phone's contacts.

While it's great to see a mobile device include out-of-box functionality for contact import from webmail and social networking sites, there's still a major problem with this type of syncing: no filters. You see, most people don't want their entire contact list from any online resource dumped into their phone. The reason is simple - we just don't phone all our online friends.

Yahoo! today becomes the latest web BigCo to offer an API allowing developers to gain access to users' address books. Though the Address Book API was publicly launched today, it has already been in use at a handful of large partner sites, including LinkedIn and Plaxo. Charles Wu, the product manager for the Address Book platform, offered a number of use cases for the new API on the YDN blog this morning.