Online address book with multi-use input bar and profile bookmarking

Abstract

An online address book is configured to include a multi-user input bar to receive search items intended to match contacts existing in a user's contact list. If a search term does not match any entry in the current contact list the search is extended by the multi-user input bar to include further candidate contacts. Candidate contacts are acquired through social profiles available from a set of networking sites linked-to over the Internet. A candidate contact that does match the search term is added to the contact list with a public profile whose contents are populated with contact data acquired from social profiles available through the networking sites. This practice of profile bookmarking may be applied iteratively across candidate contacts from various networking sites to build an extensive public profile.