plaxo

FriendFeed does the Facebook feed minus Facebook

Facebook has several layers of functionality that make it worth using, but my favorite is the once-controversial news feed. Why? I simply don't have time to check each of my friend's profiles for what's new, and the feed does a pretty great job at that without all the legwork or annoying e-mail notifications. FriendFeed is a new service that takes the idea of a news feed and extends it beyond the social network into other social services you're a part of. There are more than 20 to pick and choose from, including social news services like … Read more

Plaxo opening up its source...one contact at a time

Caroline is reporting that Plaxo, the online contacts manager, is opening up part of its source code. As she writes:

The company has released the code for its new "Online Identity Consolidator," which can automatically discover a user's social-networking accounts across the Web and embed their related RSS feeds on a Plaxo Pulse profile. It's only a small piece of Plaxo's overall architecture, but considering the service's vocal mission of openness and customizability, we'll likely see more announcements akin to this one--at least we probably ought to.

It's a good move by Plaxo in its efforts to become more than just a place to update one's address book online, especially as LinkedIn, Facebook, and others take centerstage in the social -networking scene.… Read more

Plaxo gets naked, opens up some source code

Contact management site Plaxo, which has begun dabbling in social networking with its new-ish Pulse service, has announced that it has opened up a piece of its source code to developers and anyone else who might want to play around with it. The company has released the code for its new "Online Identity Consolidator," which can automatically discover a user's social-networking accounts across the Web and embed their related RSS feeds on a Plaxo Pulse profile.

It's only a small piece of Plaxo's overall architecture, but considering the service's vocal mission of openness and … Read more

Plaxo Pulse friend request e-mails look oddly familiar

This evening I received my first e-mail from Plaxo's new Pulse social networking service, which it launched today. What had surprised me the most about Plaxo initially was how it was far more different from social networking's queen bee, Facebook, than I'd expected it would be--in fact, it reminded me much more of fellow nascent service Pownce.

But then I got that friend, er, business contact request in my Gmail inbox. Here's a screenshot:

It looked pretty darn familiar--it looked just like the equivalent e-mails that Facebook sends when other members have requested to add you … Read more

Plaxo launches new social network, Pulse--and it's a lot like Pownce

As expected, address and calendar organizer Plaxo unveiled on Monday its Pulse social-networking site.

Rumors about Plaxo expanding into social networking have been floating about recently; the company confirmed them to a number of press outlets last week and made some screenshots available in advance.

Now you can play with the beta service yourself. But don't call it a social-networking site; Pulse is really one part microblogging platform and one part RSS (Really Simple Syndication) reader. And despite the fact that such a description sounds nauseatingly Web 2.0 pitchy, this is a service that Plaxo hopes will appeal … Read more

Report: Plaxo to unveil social network on Monday

If two months' worth of perpetual hype and hearsay about Facebook have given you social-networking fatigue, it might be time to chug an energy drink--looks like we will see another serious entry into the field on Monday.

Launched by contact and schedule management service Plaxo, this will apparently be a sort of midpoint between the strictly business LinkedIn and the still-full-of-frat-party-photos Facebook.

The rumors started, as they often do, with a single blog post from a well-read blogger. After attending the "Lunch 2.0" event at Facebook's offices last week, Robert Scoble started up a minifirestorm of … Read more

Rumor: Xing to acquire Plaxo?

TechCrunch reported late on Friday about a hot new rumor in the social media space. The Germany-based business networking site Xing, according to TechCrunch's Michael Arrington, may be in talks to acquire online address book management company Plaxo. The deal is rumored to be in the $250 million range--a significant buy indeed.

Plaxo, for some background, was founded in 2002 by Napster co-founder Sean Parker. Since then, the company claims to have hit 15 million members (as of September 2006). It synchronizes primarily with Microsoft Outlook address books, but has also formed deals with companies like Yahoo and AOL'… Read more

Highrise, a new app from 37signals

Yesterday 37signals founder Jason Fried posted about the team's upcoming contact management app called Highrise. The goal of the app is to help you manage contact information in a better way than relying on Post-its or your current software-based customer relationship management (CRM) tool. Think of it like a Rolodex but with collaboration and more space to write things down. Many people can have access to the same records at once, and from the announcement, 37signals thinks they can do better than your current CRM.

In many ways Highrise is a solution for a problem with Web communication technology: … Read more