Google now has a lot of products, and you probably use at least a few of them, like Gmail, Hangouts, Google+, Chrome, Maps, Calendar and Search. A new platform available in preview form, Google Contacts, centralizes all of your contacts from various Google applications into one place.
Contacts were previously accessible through Gmail, but the new Google Contacts is more user-friendly. The new design looks better and makes it much easier to get rid of duplicates while keeping it up to date with a Find Duplicates tool allows you to merge contacts with a simple click. The update also ensures that contact details are kept relevant by automatically updating information from peoples' Google profile. Another new feature allows you to quickly see the last few emails you sent to someone by clicking on their contact.
The upgrade was announced by product manager Sean Purcell on the official Google Blog. Currently, Google Contacts is only available in desktop here but Purcell says they hope to release a mobile app version soon.
The announcement comes after head of products Sundar Pichai told the Mobile World Congress 2015 in Barcelona on Monday that Google+ may well be broken up into the sum of its parts. The social media platform has largely been regarded as a flop, but Pichai claimed that it was successful in its goal of getting users to login before using a Google product. The spread of the Google account has allowed the company to personalize its products to each user, and, of course, collect personal data.
Though contacts are stored in more places than just Google+, this could be the first step in the dismantling of the service. At first glance, Google Contacts looks simpler and clean, but do you really need another platform to store a contacts list when it's already all in your Gmail sidebar?
Photo Credit: Sean Purcell | Google
