Consider this, among IDs I have Yahoo, Google, AOL, and Windows Live not to mention my own domain and email on it and also along the way I have let a few domestic ones lapse like Rediff, Sify, Excite, Lycos… well you get the picture. Now also consider all the different mobile phones I have used (very obviously different numbers and under different service providers) and like everybody else I have a huge list of contacts consisting of phone and mobile numbers, email IDs, chat IDs and then a few more like Skype, MagicJack thrown in. Thankfully I’m a Windows guy and don’t have anything remotely Apple yet like a Macbook or an iPhone and my wife’s iPod does not count.
A very daunting premise as you will agree but no different from anyone else either. Now the question that begs to be asked is how to synchronize all of the contacts and pertinent information in one place and also keep it updated especially with your email address book and your mobile phone since they are most commonly used. The best option till now has been to synchronize your mobile directly with your email provided it is supported which it very much is in this day and age of Google and their excellent product Gmail. However, this does run the risk of keeping all eggs in one basket and should your email ever get hacked or even lost in the unthinkable scenario of the service provider going out of business or beginning to charge a premium then losing all your valuable contact information is a definite possibility. So the more daunting option is to have all your contacts information stored in 2 or even 3 places but with the option of centrally updating and syncing them all.
All of this is very much a possibility with Soocial, an online address book where you can sync Windows Mobile contacts, iPhone contacts, mobile phone contacts from Sony Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola, Samsung or other phones, Apple's Address Book, Blackberry contacts, Microsoft Outlook contacts, not to mention Google Mail, Windows Live, and Yahoo. Well to put it simply Soocial works with 500 devices and services and since I have been testing it out the past day I can say it works very well indeed. Registration is free and you can import contacts from any service and be up and running in under 5 minutes. You can immediately setup up various devices and services to sync with Soocial and once any information is updated or changed on Soocial, it will also be synced with all the devices and services you have setup Soocial with. Any drawbacks? Well yes in that it is not automatic, you do still have to run a sync, but apart from that this is the easiest and fastest way to keep all your contact information updated and in sync across multiple devices and services. For starters any new information I enter in my mobile phone is immediately updated in Soocial and from Social to my Outlook, Gmail, Windows Live and Yahoo, not to mention my laptop. For this and for it being free, Soocial is highly recommended.