[shadowflit]

Sure, why not.

> Email is different from social networking because in an email application, each person maintains and owns their own address book, whereas in a social network your friends maintain their information and you just maintain a list of friends.

1) People are automatically added to my address book as soon as they email me. Maybe not my "personal" address book or whatever, but their address has been recorded regardless. This is not something I have to maintain, it happens as soon as you contact me.

2) If I change my primary email address I need to send out a blast mail to everyone who I might care to have my new address. A pain in the ass. I'd much prefer to have contact information pushed to me through, say, existing networks.

I honestly don't see a difference. I look at my address book as a "friends list" as well - just an annoying one that I need to keep up to date, instead of allowing my contacts to update as they need to. And if someone doesn't want me to have their contact information, why would we be friends in the first place? (I suppose you could fence off access to a select group, but really)