Plaxo is Redeemed

Posted on September 11, 2007
Filed Under web 2.0 |

A while back, at Mashup Camp, I saw a Plaxo Pulse demo and thought it was pretty cool. I have been meaning to get back on Plaxo since then but for whatever reason never got that to-do done. Until this weekend and now I can say that whatever past spamming sins Plaxo is guilty of are fully forgiven.

The address book is rich and features a update function courtesy of the Plaxo network, and offers a number of sync points. I synced from my local OSX Address Book application and really appreciated that they deliver the sync tool as a control panel extension.

The calendar and task list, which also sync locally, are more than freebie apps, they are actually pretty decent in terms of functions offered and UI. The overall user experience is very positive and at a number of points you are prompted with privacy details. The acceptance of their dubious past when it comes to privacy and the deliberate effort to overcome privacy concerns are appreciated.

Plaxo Pulse continues to interest me, although it has quite a way to go before being as useful as a Facebook feed, although speaking of feeds, I do appreciate that the Plaxo feed is delivered, optionally, as a RSS feed. Cool. As I was browsing through the feed and related functions I couldn’t help but think that Linkedin is looking really weak by comparison.

I am going to continue to play around with the Plaxo feed to see how rich the content is, but I am definitely going to use the address book feature as a central point for managing contacts, syncing out to my various apps in a hub-and-spoke manner.

Plaxo deserves a lot of credit for turning their service from a primary occupational spam engine to something that offers a great amount of utility. Also not forgotten is a business model that offers plenty of value – free – for most people while layering in premium services that cater to high volume users for a mere $50 a year.

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