Patent ID: 7263535

Claim:
A method for managing contacts, comprising: grouping a plurality of members from a plurality of contacts as a group; setting a rule to define networked accessibility of the group, the networked accessibility of the group based upon network accessibility of members of the group, where an identifier for an individual group member is not viewable by a user; notifying the user as to the network accessibility of the group; blindly connecting the user with a single member associated with said group upon receiving a request from the user to connect to a group contact associated with said group, wherein the single member is selected from said group by rotating among group members with each request received and the rule comprises requiring a certain subset of members of said group to be accessible before the group is indicated as accessible; requesting a status on a particular member of said group, said request being a specific inquiry for network status of the particular member; and receiving an update on the status of a particular user within said group.