Nimrands Library

Once upon a time I was gazing through a mass of email I had accumulated over a day or two. There were about five personal emails distributed among hundreds of junk mails. I had found my mail filters had become ineffective, and there was no way to fix it, lest I create and maintain a massive list of those it is ok to receive email from and risk never getting some emails, none-the-less. I had long wished to simply stop using the account, but despite my pleas for others to update their address books and begin using another address, many still had not. Some had, but many of them entered the new address incorrectly or still had my old one in their books as well. There is no way of being sure I had even contacted everyone. I think to myself, "Surely, there must be an easier way!"

Enter: Online Directory Service. Why should people need to keep track of their own independent address books filled with other people's addresses? Its slow, error-prone, and duplicates the same task across hundreds of people. Thus far, it has been this way because there was no better alternative, but Real Time Address Book changes all that. With the help of web-service technology, people can now keep their address books up-to-date at a click of the mouse, while making their own contact information available to hundreds of people with minimized risk of it falling into the hands of spamsters.

Real Time Address Book started out as a entry in the Microsoft .NET Best Student Awards 2001 contest. Back then, it was known as Online Directory Service (not a particularly catchy name). You can find the original entry here. I don't know how long it will remain there, however.