Update (Nick): We contacted John about the traffic spike. Essentially he says that the OpenSocial announcement helped publicize Plaxo Pulse. He believes the platform was more mature this time around and convinced a lot more users to sign on and invite their friends who invited more friends, causing the hockey stick. Ever since Plaxo joined Google’s OpenSocial platform a couple weeks ago, the… → Read More
It didn’t take long for someone to hack the first OpenSocial application. In fact, it took just 45 minutes. A developer who goes by the alias “theharmonyguy” and describes himself as “just an amateur” claims to have compromised the RockYou OpenSocial application on Plaxo called emote (see the Plaxo blog for details on the application). Specifically, he claims to have… → Read More
The Google OpenSocial site is now live (here). The video above comes from the Google OpenSocial Campfire held Thursday night and is featured on the front of the new page.The site includes the complete OpenSocial API Documentation, FAQ and Group area.Also now live is OpenSocial support for Google’s big in Brazil social networking site Orkut (here). According to Google, the OpenSocial… → Read More
Plaxo has released support for Google’s OpenSocial initiative. The API’s are currently at 0.5 release so Plaxo warns that things are likely to change as OpenSocial moves forward, however in their words “we want to make sure that everyone who’s getting excited about it has a place they can channel their energy and get things running sooner.” Plaxo support for… → Read More
Google may have just come out of nowhere and checkmated Facebook in the social networking power struggle. MySpace and Six Apart will announce that they are joining Google’s OpenSocial initiative. Silicon Alley Insider reported the MySpace rumor earlier today. We’ve confirmed that from an independent source, as well as the fact that Six Apart is joining. Per the update below, Google has… → Read More
Pulse, which launched earlier this summer, is Plaxo’s foray into social networking. After years of collecting users’ contact information and address book contacts, they took the next step and created a social network around all that data. One of the big features they added was a place for users to add information about what they are up to on any of dozens of other social networks… → Read More
TechCrunch has been hard on unified address book provider Plaxo in the past, and probably with due cause, given their previous spam promoting ways, but I am now reevaluating that view based on Plaxo Sync. I wrote about Plaxo’s improved Sync features back in June; although it sounded good I didn’t really have cause to use it then. Confronted with a “how do I sync various… → Read More
The idea of taking an address book application and turning it into a social network isn’t new – Plaxo just did it two weeks ago. Now ZYB, a Danish startup, is using the mobile phone contact list as the center of the network, and the company doesn’t have the emotional baggage that still lingers with Plaxo and makes many users hesitant to trust them (I, for one, forgave them long… → Read More
So Plaxo’s new social network, called Pulse (we wrote about it last month), is still extremely buggy. Robert Scoble and Matt Marshall say it launches properly on Monday, so hopefully they’ll have the kinks worked out by then. For now, it’s live but doesn’t really work. Plaxo has effectively turned itself into a social network. In terms of users, the biggest overlap will be… → Read More
Plaxo recently launched a new 3.0 version that was more than just an AJAX face lift. Plaxo, once a notorious spammer, has grown beyond their core service of being the web’s address book. The new version not only synchronizes contact information, but also your information feeds, like Flickr, calendars, and adding new feeds every day through Plaxo Pulse. Today Plaxo is joining a host of other… → Read More
Plaxo has announced Plaxo 3.0, a new version that builds on its multi-point sync product by offering improved sync options as well as a feed-style people tracker. Automated “multi-way sync” under Plaxo 3.0 includes Google Calender, Microsoft (Outlook, Outlook Express, Vista Mail, and Hotmail), Yahoo (Mail and Calendar), Mac OSX (for Address Book, iCal, and iPhone), AOL (AIM and Classic… → Read More
Update: I spoke with Plaxo CEO Ben Golub and a spokesperson from Xing this weekend. Both deny the deal, although Xing has other news later this week, they say. We are hearing a LOT of chatter about a possible Xing-Plaxo merger in the $250 million range. The deal makes some sense – newly public Xing is headquartered in Germany and hasn’t gotten much traction in the U.S. where it… → Read More
Comcast is ditching its antiquidated webmail software and replacing it with Zimbra’s Ajax office suite, the companies will announce this evening. That’s good news for Comcast’s twelve million broadband customers, and even better news for Zimbra – this deal will significantly grow the number of Zimbra users from the current six million or so customers. The deal also includes… → Read More
Today’s the day – SuperBowl XLI. Hundreds of millions of people around the world will eat junk food, drink beer, and watch the best television advertising all year interrupted periodically with a football game. Six startups (Meebo, Meez, Multiply, Plaxo, RockYou and Technorati) who can’t afford the $2.5 million plus for a thirty second spot during the game got together to produce… → Read More
Why is this man smiling? Because Verizon today announced it will be selling a service from Plaxo that allows its wireless customers to automagically sync up their contacts between their computers and mobile devices, over the air. The Java BREW application is compatible with most current Verizon handsets and costs $4.49 a month. While we’d rather see this as a one-time fee-for-service charge… → Read More
This news was embargoed until today at 5 AM PST, but Om managed to dig up the facts anyway. Recently reformed Plaxo is announcing the acquisition of online calendaring startup HipCal, which was built by five college students while attending Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York Plaxo says they will integrate HipCal’s calendaring product directly into Plaxo’s free product… → Read More
Plaxo CEO Ben Golub wrote a public apology on their corporate blog for their past actions in encouraging “acquaintance spam”. I have to say that I never actually thought this would happen. I’m surprised and happy to see this. Heck, I might even join the service to show my support. And I mean that without any trace of sarcasm whatsoever (really). Here’s the meat of the… → Read More
Plaxo tends to bring on strong negative emotions in people. Frustration. Revulsion. Dismay. The reason so many people hate Plaxo? Those of us who aren’t customers, which is the vast majority of everyone, get multiple daily emails from those few misguided souls who’ve chosen to sign up for the Plaxo Spam Service (my name, not theirs). When you sign up for Plaxo, they make it… → Read More
Austin, TX
Seattle, WA
San Diego, CA
Menlo Park, CA
Boston, MA
Disrupt Europe: Berlin Hackathon
Berlin, Germany
