A method of providing reachability status to subscribers comprising: presenting a plurality of reachability states, each reachability state representing an aggregate accessibility of a user derived from a plurality of statuses each corresponding to one of a plurality of network elements associated with the user; for each of the reachability states, presenting at least one reachability rule, each reachability rule corresponding to one of the network elements and indicating a status for satisfying the reachability rule; receiving a selection of one or more of the reachability rules; accessing a central storage maintaining the statuses corresponding to the network elements; identifying an ordering of the selected reachability rules; until a current reachability status is selected: identifying one of the reachability rules based on the identified ordering; determining whether the identified reachability rule is satisfied; and if the identified reachability rule is satisfied, selecting the reachability state associated with the identified reachability rule as the current reachability status; receiving a visibility rule specifying a set of information that can be communicated to subscribers, wherein the set of information includes identified ones of the current reachability status and the plurality of statuses corresponding to the plurality of network elements associated with the user; applying the visibility rule to determine which information is communicated to subscribers; and communicating to the subscribers the information as determined according to the visibility rule. presenting a plurality of reachability states, each reachability state representing an aggregate accessibility of a user derived from a plurality of statuses each corresponding to one of a plurality of network elements associated with the user; for each of the reachability states, presenting at least one reachability rule, each reachability rule corresponding to one of the network elements and indicating a status for satisfying the reachability rule; receiving a selection of one or more of the reachability rules; accessing a central storage maintaining the statuses corresponding to the network elements; identifying an ordering of the selected reachability rules; until a current reachability status is selected: identifying one of the reachability rules based on the identified ordering; determining whether the identified reachability rule is satisfied; and if the identified reachability rule is satisfied, selecting the reachability state associated with the identified reachability rule as the current reachability status; identifying one of the reachability rules based on the identified ordering; determining whether the identified reachability rule is satisfied; and if the identified reachability rule is satisfied, selecting the reachability state associated with the identified reachability rule as the current reachability status; receiving a visibility rule specifying a set of information that can be communicated to subscribers, wherein the set of information includes identified ones of the current reachability status and the plurality of statuses corresponding to the plurality of network elements associated with the user; applying the visibility rule to determine which information is communicated to subscribers; and communicating to the subscribers the information as determined according to the visibility rule.