I first read about the new My Contacts feature for Gmail on the LifeHacker website. http://lifehacker.com/398595/gmail-contacts-get-selective

<< My Contacts is a place to import, store and view all of the contact information that's important to you. You can also create your own groups of contacts to easily email many people at once.
We add people you've emailed to Suggested Contacts. You can move contacts from Suggested Contacts into My Contacts at any time. >>

The feature is now available on my Gmail account. I really like having the ability to tell Google to stop adding everyone in the world to my contacts list just because I sent an email to them.

Official blog post about the feature:
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/updates-to-gmail-contact-manager.html

Some early opinions about the feature:
http://groups.google.com/group/Gmail-Help-Chats-and-Contacts-en/browse_thread/thread/767aa5a9954da781

Once again, this is a feature that I can't believe wasn't there from the start.

(Come to think of it, didn't there used to be an option that would let you stop contacts being added automatically? I'm sure it was there in the early days...)

I became a full-time Gmail user in 2006 and I think I've always had the 'everyone is your contact' type of contact list.

Some features they still need:
The ability to select multiple contacts and merge them into one contact. My sister has like 4 email accounts, I don't really need to have her listed 4 separate times in my contacts list.

Ability to add birthday data would be awesome.

When you select multiple contacts from a long list of suggested contacts, I wish they would show you who was selected on the right hand side of the screen. All they really show is the number of people selected.

Wishing Google could integrate a official syncing supporting the standard SyncML (Synchronization Markup Language) that almost all mobiles support. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SyncML

Now you have to rely on unsecure and/or costly third support software/services.

Tony I don't believe so. The auto add has been around for a long time.

>Wishing Google could integrate a official syncing supporting the standard SyncML (Synchronization Markup Language) that almost all mobiles support.

See here: http://twitter.com/andrewfogg/statuses/860774608

<< SyncML for Google contacts next month. Soocial watchout. My guess: its related to the sync that they worked on with Apple for 3G iPhone >>

I'm happy with the new contact manager, is easier to view my real contacts without losing other addresses. I'll test it better, but at first glance, it looks like a nice improvement.

ReadWriteWeb: GMail tries to be less creepy, fails
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/gmail_tries_to_be_less_creepy.php

Here's the deal breaker for me: When you sync your iPhone contacts with your Google Contacts, it includes *all* contacts, including your Suggested Contacts. That's no good.

Also, you cannot move contacts 'back' from My Contacts to Suggested Contacts. The only option is to delete them from My Contacts.