Google opens up Contacts API to help encourage collaboration

In a move to make its online applications more accessible to people who use collaboration tools -- especially with Outlook -- Google yesterday announced it's going to implement a little interoperability of its own.

Google yesterday announced that its Google Contacts Data API is available to developers.

The API allows developers to program client applications which can create, read, update, and delete Google contacts. The Google Data protocol is based on AtomPub (Atom Publishing Protocol/APP,) a standard still in development by the Internet Engineering Task Force. Atom's primary use is in the syndication of weblogs and news headlines to sites and user agents.

Google anticipates the API will be useful in synchronizing Google contacts with contacts on mobile devices, in maintaining contacts between people in social networks, and in giving users the ability to directly communicate with friends via external applications using phone, e-mail, and IM.

Some early problems have already been noted about the API. One is that it lacks interoperability with OpenID and OAuth, two similar open protocols that allow secure API authentication. OpenID boasts over 10,000 sites utilizing its API. Another problem noted is that Google contact lists have a tendency to grow automatically. Gmail automatically adds any address replied to as a contact. Similarly, Google Talk automatically adds anyone as a contact whose conversation consists of more than 3 replies. The more applications interacting with this data increase the likelihood of unwanted contacts being added and communicated with.

An additional announcement encouraging interoperability came yesterday regarding Google's Web-based Calendar application. The company has made an app available which syncs the Google Calendar data with desktop calendars such as the one in Microsoft Outlook. Events added to one calendar will automatically sync and appear on the other; dates, privacy levels, and reminders are all shared as well.

Outlook already has the native ability to transfer calendars from Google, which makes a "snapshot" of a Google calendar viewable in Outlook. This lacks the ability, however, for the applications to affect each other's data.