Pretty much what wellmax96 said. You'll have to gift them items and hangout with them. When you've gotten 3 stars (3x hangouts) and the gift icon has a heart next to it (the icon goes black > red > yellow > green > heart), that means they're ready to proceed to the next chapter of their storyline.
As for the contacts page, it's in the in-game phone, at the bottom, it looks like a yellow square with a silhouette of a person like a default facebook profile pic. That's the contacts page that shows you stuff about the character. In later versions, it shows you a more in-depth progression of their content.