How can I synchronize my Outlook address book with web based email accounts?

Question

I've been using Outlook 2007 and recently I've tried to export my address book to a file in order to load it to Hotmail and Yahoo email accounts. When I try to export my contacts, there seems to be 2 good options in Outlook: as comma separated values and tab separated values. No VCARD here, interesting huh? Then I try to inject this file into Hotmail address book, but it gives an error (it says some kind of internal error). I tried all import options in Hotmail but to no avail. Besides, when I view these CSV files in Notepad++, there are lots of empty double quotation marks which point to lots of empty & unused info fields and I think they can cause problems during importing.

Is there an easy way to synchronize contacts (address book) for Outlook and other web based email services? Are there any other people like me who experience this kind of problems? Any useful comments are greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

I haven't used this service, but here's a site that claims to be able to do it:

http://www.soocial.com/

Keep your contacts in sync. Your phone, your computer and web applications will have the same address book.

Answer 2

A very popular service for syncing contact information is Plaxo. It will sync with multiple services and applications. There are some limitations based on your services and service levels. Hotmail and Yahoo for example don't allow certain functions without paying for a premium service.