people do when they want to find someone is Google them. What they generally find is a long list of social networking profiles that they cannot access for messaging unless they are a member.

WikiWorldBook provides a free online address book which gives users a free individual "Home Page" for their contact details on the web. Uniquely, this highly search engine optimised page enables people to be found via a Google search of their name and instantly contacted online by email, without having to reveal any of their contact details. Users can keep their email address hidden behind a message form and a powerful spam filter removes spam before messages are forwarded to the user's regular email account, so they do not have to return to the website to pick them up. Message senders do not have to register enabling message sending to take place in seconds.

The web service currently has around 25,000 registered users and appeals to a very broad range of people from every nationality and socio-economic background. The site is marketed as a "directory service" rather than a "social service" and this low maintenance aspect broadens its appeal to users who already conduct their online social and business lives on walled garden sites like Facebook and LinkedIn.

Existing competition within the "online address book" business category includes Plaxo and Unyk, which are "walled garden" websites, and Telnic. The introduction of WikiWorldBook's new instant email service within this existing business category would be a "game changer". The existing providers, which maintain a walled garden model to increase their subscriptions, are unlikely to become more open until forced to by competition and are likely to resist this change in the short term.

The web service has been reported by a number of mainstream and web based media including The BBC and The Guardian.