I have been very supportive towards Plaxo over a number of years - but that might now be cast into doubt. For those of you who don't know Plaxo it is described thus in Wikipedia:
'Plaxo provides automatic updating of contact information. Users and their contacts store their information on Plaxo's servers. When this information is edited by the user, the changes appear in the address books of all those who listed the account changer in their own books. Once contacts are stored in the central location, it is possible to list connections between contacts and access the address book from anywhere.'
I liked the clean UI - consistent strategic technology objective and (reasonably) well delivered integration with popular messaging and calendaring environments. But the heavy hand and populist heart of its recent benefactor / purchasor Comcast can now been seen in a clear light.
My recent move to Microsoft has meant that I have spent more time than usual on Plaxo, LinkedIn, etc. updating my revised details and as as result I noticed it - Fanpages on Plaxo - sacrilege! This is a clear move from a Business to a Consumer focus and I fear that his could be the thin end of a very nasty wedge.
The business blog on Wired has covered this and along with this it is clear Plaxo will start to focus its delivery on the Comcast broadband customer base. From Comcast's perspective this is quite understandable.
As for the TV Fanpages, there are no non-US TV programs on the list as far as I can see, so I suspect that non-business, non-Comcast and non-US Plaxo users may find themselves marginalised over time. It is likely to get very parochial.
I hope I am wrong as Plaxo offers great functionality and which could become even more useful as building heterogeneous environments across devices continues to remain problematic.
Comments (2)
Sincere congrats on the Job Ian - well done!
Posted by Paul Mooney | October 15, 2008 3:31 PM
Posted on October 15, 2008 15:31
Worry not Ian, there is a B2B focused (although admittedly young) social network in WeCanDo.BIZ which has the simplicity of Plaxo and with none of the anti-networking tools of LinkedIn.
We even support connection with contact using Live Hotmail, Outlook Express, Outlook and Exchange (if they also have Internet Explorer of course).
For those who don't appreciate Ian's recent role change, try GMail, AOL, Yahoo!, LinkedIn support and a platform built on PHP and MySQL... ;-)
Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
Posted by Ian Hendry | October 16, 2008 12:11 AM
Posted on October 16, 2008 00:11