Content Sync Done Right; Soocial
Many of us struggle with the synchronization of our contact lists; we all use Facebook, we all use email, we all have phones, but what we never seem to get “right” is one common contact list. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve needed to send an email from my phone and not had the email address stored there. Sure a single Exchange or LDAP server solves the issue, but how many of us want to have to maintain Exchange, let alone run one at home. Enter, Soocial. Yes, there’s two o’s… probably because it’s twice as magical as you’d think, or maybe it’s because the two o’s look a bit like an infinity symbol… who knows.
Simply put, Soocial is a cross-platform contact synchronization service. And when I say cross-platform, I don’t just mean Windows vs. Mac; according to their website, Soocial supports over 500 devices and services, ranging from phones (Symbian, Android, iOS, etc.) to applications (Outlook), and services (Gmail, Windows Live, Yahoo!, etc.). Once you signup and configure each device you want included in the sync, Soocial goes to work making sure that all of the contacts match on each device. Cue the cheesy “but wait, there’s more” music… Sure Soocial syncs your contacts (that’s what it “sells” itself as doing), but it also lets you download and store full backups of your contacts, import/export contacts, automatically remove duplicates, edit contacts (including photos) within the browser, and even manage and view versions of each contact (yes, it stores an incremental version each time a contact is edited).