The Social Phonebook is coming (finally) ...

Zyb have now released a beta version of their client app in addition to mobile browser access via m.zyb.com.

It's only officially available (read-optimised) for Sony Ericsson phones right now although it installed on an N78 spoofed as W910i. Here's some of the client features: geo-presence, Social Network/microblog updates and sharing PIM functions (short video below) ...

Nokia launched an IM/Chat beta client today also with geo-presence (AAS review here). The app is integrated into the phone book/contacts as a separate tab (and not the Messaging app). One of Nokia's beta-lab earlier products "Conversation" was also integrated into the phonebook/contacts as an extra tab.

We are at last starting to see integration of communi-content into the most social and useful applications on any mobile phone - the contacts/phone book, (**and I note Apple have split off Contacts from the Phone application in v2.0, so that Contacts is now separate - allowing better cross-application integration. Why did'nt the master of UI/UE do this initially is odd - calling is person-centric not function-centric**).