Recently a new web 2.0 site has been launched; it is called Picaphone and aspires to become the largest global address book on the web, both for people and for businesses.
The concept of Picaphone combines strong elements from leading services like Plaxo, white pages, yelp and some more with the following enhancements: 1-You Maintain a functional contact network without the "social" hassle. 2- You create your own private and business listing that lasts forever by collecting the info first from Picaphone's general index, and in the future from around the web. 3- You Keep all your contacts up-to-date with Picaphone's sync mechanism. 4- You use FREE global communication tools like video and voice messaging. 5- You can share your contacts, preferences and favorite listings with others.
Personally the last feature excites me a lot, I can imagine myself going on vacation to London where just before the flight I get the entire contact list of my friend who lives there, and use his address book + reviews to order places in restaurants, call a taxi service and more.
I had lunch with the founder of Picaphone Ori Shaked, who said in great enthusiasm
"for the first time, the www.picaphone.com site will allow everyone convenient, free and fast access to phone numbers of individuals and companies all over the world, without requiring the information services of the telephone companies and having to pay for it. The success of this ambitious project depends on the cooperation of web surfers all over the world. The target is to reach millions of users within the first few months."