What ever happened to column view in Address Books

If you look at your contact list in Hotmail, Yahoo, Google, Gist, Social, Xobni, Facebook, Dub, Plaxo, etc..., you'll notice that all they typically do is just list the names in a single column.  To pull up any data for each contact, you have to physically click on the contact, and then it displays some form of "card view" where you can edit the data.

The only exceptions to this rule is Outlook and Thunderbird.  They offer a full-on column view where you can see lots of information about your contacts at a single glance.  Unfortunately, even with all the fields that they offer, plug-ins available, and third-party add-ons, it's actually not enough.

It is my argument that the column view is greatly needed throughout the various address book web services and whomever or whatever focus group told companies otherwise is gravely mistaken.

When I look at my address book, I'd like to see lots of information at a single glance:

• I'd like to know who I'm connected to, how we're connected, and how much do I know about the person.
• I'd like to be able to customize the view the way I want it, and be able to move or adjust the columns accordingly.
• I'd like to be able to decide which fields do and do not show up and in what order.
• I'd like more information than the standard PIM data, Instant Messaging Screen Names, and website URLs.
• I'd like to see which Social Networks my contacts are on, what their profile names are, and whether we're connected on those networks or not (even if it requires manually entering the data).

Now the closest that any of these services come is Gist, but it's still only on an individual contact view.  Their column view shows how important someone is to you, and the number of different sources you're connected to them, but that's it.

As you can probably tell, I have gotten tired of waiting for these companies to realize this need on their own, so I am hoping that this might give them a little push.  I have even contacted the open source Funambol community and have proposed this be added to the currently being developed open sourced web interface.  I can only hope that someone opens their eyes before I am forced back to a basic Excel spreadsheet.

NOTE: Below is a very rudimentary draft of how I think the column view could be laid out with tabs.  I know that it's missing some fields, like URLs, but I figured this would at least give those involved some idea of what I have in mind.