Plaxo in the News

February 29, 2008

Q&A: Throwing sheep at Plaxo's Joseph Smarr

MIAMI--Joseph Smarr, chief systems architect at Plaxo, has become somewhat of an icon of social media's future. An ardent supporter of open standards, Smarr is arguably one of the biggest proponents of Google's OpenSocial who can't officially claim to be a Googler. So it's fitting that Smarr has played a prominent role at the Future of Web Apps conference; CNET News.com had a chance to catch up with him on Thursday and find out some more about what "open" really means and what's next at Plaxo.

February 8, 2008

The Best Free Software

We did the math: If you bought popular apps instead of trying their gratis counter-parts, at the manufacturers' list prices you'd be out $5,183 and change! Why spend money when you can get what you need for nothing? Sometimes, you do get what you don't pay for.

February 2, 2008

Plaxo: Another week, another product

I don’t know what they feed the developers at Plaxo but they just keep on coming up with new products and services. We have written about Plaxo a lot here at The Next Web Blog and there are two reasons for that. We like their service and they produce a lot of news.

February 1, 2008

Google Social Graph API Spotted in the Wild: Plaxo Public Profiles

While most of the day has been devoted to coverage of the proposed Microsoft-Yahoo deal, there is some pretty significant news out of Google as well: the launch of the Social Graph API. As Mark described earlier, \"it’s used by social app developers to let their users grab information on their social connections across the internet.\"

February 1, 2008

Google unleashes Social Graph API - indexes people connections

Following on its OpenSocial APIs for building cross-social network applications, Google has created a Social Graph API that searches the Web for explicit public statements of connections between people. The Web crawler looks for XFN (XHTML Friends Network) and FOAF (Friend of a Friend), which are standard formats used to indicate people connections.

January 29, 2008

Plaxo Pulse Wants to Sync Your Status Updates

One thing about "Web 2.0" is that it doesn't take long for companies to copy features that are working well on other sites. A prominent example of this is the ubiquitous "Status Updates" feature, which first gained popularity on Facebook and has since been copied by MySpace, hi5, and is in a sense the main purpose of Twitter.

January 23, 2008

Plaxo Rides the Apple Wave With Pulse for iPhones

Plaxo Pulse recently made its application available on Windows Mobile OS, and now it’s also available as an optimized application for the iPhone. Both of these releases come within the same time frame as Plaxo Pulse’s integration with the Mac address book as well as Microsoft Outlook. It’s very clear, as it always has been, that Plaxo is looking to insert itself into every possible social application that a large number of people are likely to use.

January 22, 2008

Plaxo Pulse Optimized for 4 Million iPhones

Plaxo Pulse recently made its application available on Windows Mobile OS, and now it’s also available as an optimized application for the iPhone. Both of these releases come within the same time frame as Plaxo Pulse’s integration with the Mac address book as well as Microsoft Outlook. It’s very clear, as it always has been, that Plaxo is looking to insert itself into every possible social application that a large number of people are likely to use.

January 17, 2008

Yahoo Implements OpenID; Massive Win For The Project

The rumor last week was that Google (as well as Verisign and IBM) were mulling over the idea of joining the OpenID 2.0 single sign-on framework. But the real news comes today, as Yahoo and its roughly 250 million user IDs officially jump on the bandwagon. Today, there are only approximately 120 million valid OpenID accounts. In one move, Yahoo more than triples that number.

January 16, 2008

Plaxo Pulls The Social Network Into Mac Mail

At some point last year people started to realize that the email inbox was not only the “original” Internet social network, it’s also going to be the backbone of social networking going forward. You already have your friends (people in your address book), and the social graph is already filled (people you email, and who they email, etc.).

January 8, 2008

Facebook, Google And Plaxo Join Data Portability Workgroup

After publishing an invitation to Facebook to join the DataPortability Working Group January 4, we never thought that Facebook would accept it. Today changes everything you’ve ever thought about social-networking data and lock-in before, because today Facebook, Google and Plaxo have joined the DataPortability Workgroup.

January 3, 2008

Facebook, Robert Scoble and Free Love

If Facebook wanted more bad blog coverage it couldn’t have done a better job than picking on Robert Scoble, the publicity-seeking blogger. Mr. Scoble was kicked off of Facebook because he used a preview version of a Plaxo service that logged onto his Facebook account to download the names and e-mail addresses of his friends.

January 3, 2008

Plaxo gives Facebook a litmus test

Plaxo links Pulse social network to Outlook e-mail client, taking social networking to the desktop

December 11, 2007

Microsoft Outlook gets a 'Pulse'

Plaxo links Pulse social network to Outlook e-mail client, taking social networking to the desktop

December 11, 2007

Spice up Outlook: New Plaxo Toolbar puts the Social Web in Your E-Mail

Plaxo has announced a new version of its toolbar for Outlook which now integrates your Plaxo Pulse feed, allowing you to see what your friends are up to before you try to contact them.

December 11, 2007

Plaxo Pulse Toolbar for Outlook = Real-Time Updates on Your Contacts

Plaxo is pushing its newest social networking tool, Pulse, even further into our existing applications with a new Outlook toolbar. Yes, Plaxo already had Outlook integration, which gave you updated contact information on the folks in your address book, and more recently offered up map and direction options and click-to-connect VoIP options.

December 11, 2007

Plaxo Offers Pulse Plugin For Outlook

Plaxo has announced a new plugin that brings Plaxo Pulse to Microsoft Outlook.

November 20, 2007

First OpenSocial Application Generates Traffic Surge

Plaxo Inc., the first company to launch applications built using Google Inc.'s OpenSocial APIs, has seen a surge in traffic in the three weeks since the APIs were released. Google unveiled the APIs on Nov. 1 as part of an effort to help developers build social applications that can run on multiple sites.

November 19, 2007

OpenSocial Has Been Good to Plaxo, Inc.

Ever since Plaxo joined Google’s OpenSocial platform a couple weeks ago, the number of connections on Plaxo has skyrocketed from about 200,000 to over a million. Here is a graph from Plaxo marketing VP John McCrea (nice hockey stick, John)

November 19, 2007

Plaxo Sees Exponential Growth as First to Use OpenSocial

The company that got first dibs at implementing OpenSocial gadgets has seen its service grow more than tenfold in the 3 weeks since roll out. Plaxo Pulse, the service that lets you receive live updates on activity going on across your social networks based on the contacts you have in Plaxo, was quick to jump on the OpenSocial train; and that has turned into a gravy train since then.