The trusty address book in your Gmail account (assuming you have one) is actually much more than just a simple database of names and contact info. It’s Google’s stealth social network. The reason is that the search engine is increasingly utilizing the Gmail contact list as a pseudo web service to power its other applications. It’s brilliant because, in the process, Google will turn every service from one that is static to something social.
Google is the first to recognize the power of…
— steverubel
