Contact Requests. Why Isn't This a Thing?

Apple let the leash off of a slew of new stuff last Wednesday, not least of which being a new Mail/Contact/Calendar syncing service called iCloud.  As of right now, the only thing iCloud does is synchronize your stuff between your Mac, iOS devices, and it's web interfaces - something that Google has been doing for years with Gmail, Calendar, and Android.  What I can't figure out is why no one has used these services to let people share contact information with each other.

Both Apple and Google have had the opportunity to create a feature like this, and it seems obvious to me that they should.  As everyone knows, managing a contact list of everyone you know is an immensely tedious task.  Apple could easily roll out a system like this through iCloud and iOS, and Google could easily do it through Gmail and Android.  A user maintains their profile and the people they're sharing it with instead of trying to manage a static contact list.  Imagine asking someone for their Apple ID or their Gmail address instead of their phone number when you want to exchange contact information.

This awesome mockup was done by Cillian O'Keeffe. Thanks a ton!

The model for this system could take inspiration from Valve.  Steam has a very simple "Add a Friend" feature that lets you enter the email address of the person who you want to add.  Once you do that, an alert will show up on that person's Steam account that lets them confirm the friendship.  The exact same process could be done through iCloud and people's me.com address, or through Gmail.

Granted, Facebook already has something like this.  The Facebook apps on iOS and Android can synchronize your Facebook friends list with your device's contact list.  But it always isn't appropriate to be a Facebook friend with someone (like your boss or a client), as it gives them access to much more than just your name and phone number.

In the coming years, mobile phone plans will move away from a weird combination of gigabytes of data, voice minutes, and text messages to only data (and an unlimited amount of it), people will have the freedom to use a multitude of communication media.  For now, Google and Apple need to create a system like this so that they can maintain a list of connections for when phone numbers become obsolete.