Abstract: The growth of the World Wide Web has yielded many new and diverse sources of contact information. These sources need to be properly synchronized in order to be effectively integrated and ultimately useful. It is also important to maintain the integrity, customization and privacy required of a proper contact book. Current contact book models and mechanisms for synchronization all rely on explicit, inherent or implicit value judgments on the validity of the sources (examples include: choosing one source exclusively over others, choosing the latest information input as the best, or creating a hierarchy of sources, or implicitly creating biases when a source synching sequence is required) which are then blindly applied across the synchronization process. Information is then placed directly into the contact book, often without consulting the user for a decision, and with the potential to overwrite correct information.

Abstract: The mechanism pertains to a databases generally located on a remote server and accessed via such vehicles as the World Wide Web. The mechanism revolves around a grouping of contacts for a user. The user defines contact and other information for each contact (user-defined information). Simultaneously, contacts provide information on themselves which is also posted to the interface (contact-defined information). The mechanism synthesizes and pairs these two sets of information and serves it to the user.

Abstract: The invention is a computer-network based mechanism and interface which can be used by professionals to provide to personal and professional contacts their most up-to-date contact information; and secondarily, systems to facilitate upkeep of business relationships as well as to catalyze the making of new ones. The invention provides a user with space on a remote server (accessible via the World Wide Web) to store their professional and personal contact information (‘provider vehicle’). A user can then serve to other users (accessing the remote server via the World Wide Web) the content he/she has uploaded to the remote server, by providing them with pre-determined access rights (‘viewer vehicle’). The invention stores in the user's allotted remote server space, a record of the “viewer vehicles” and “provider vehicles” that have been served to that user by other users of the system.