Contact management system and method

Abstract

In an embodiment of a method of providing contact information, the method includes creating a contact record in a contact management system, where a process associated with a subject of the contact record and/or a recipient of data associated with the contact record is included in creating the contact record. A unique serial number is generated corresponding to the contact record and the serial number is conveyed to the recipient. A request by an application is received for the contact record from the contact management system corresponding to the serial number and data associated with the contact record is transmitted to the application.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method of sorting contact records in a contact management system, comprising the steps of: detecting a user accessing the contact records; updating a time variable, a date variable, and a total number of times accessed variable related to each of the contact records; communicating the updated variables to the contact management system for the contact records; processing by the contact management system the updated variables to form an ordinal list of the contact records based on recent access and frequency of access; and making the ordinal list available for request by the network devices. 
     
     
         2 . A method for detecting the presence of a user on a network device, comprising the steps of: detecting a user activity on the network device; communicating the user activity to a contact management system; updating a contact record of the contact management system associated with the user with the user activity on the network device; and receiving an update based on the updated contact record by a recipient. 
     
     
         3 . A method of utilizing an update to contact information, comprising the steps of: detecting an update to a contact record in a contact management system; and providing an update to a process based on the step of detecting the update to the contact record. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 3 , wherein the process is one or more of the processes of populating an electronic form, presenting a commercial offer, and updating a subscription-based service.