I have been a premium Plaxo user since the company started.  Since my business interests are primarily B2B (Business to Business) Service Providers, my contacts literally are my bread and butter.  I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 2500 contacts after I recently audited it, being able to keep track of these folks over the years and maintain a relationship with them has been a huge asset to me. Plaxo is a huge part of that equation. 

Recently Plaxo sold to Comcast and is now a part of their Media Group.  Over the past year or so Plaxo added a new feature called Plaxo Pulse that enables you to keep in touch with your contacts even better.  Since today’s landscape consists of social networks on top of social networks, the two big examples being Facebook and MySpace, it’s even more and more important to stay on top of your contacts inside these networks.  I am currently working on a project with a client that uses Facebook a lot to communicate regarding the project.  This is not uncommon, I actually have two projects right now that are working through Facebook.  A year or two ago I would have laughed at the idea. 

With Plaxo Pulse, you not only stay in contact with and connect to your business acquantances, classmates, friends, and family but you also stay in the loop with what’s going on in their world.  Pulse incorporates all of the top social media networks into one easy to track location.  I am not aware of anyone else really doing that right now effectively or as comprehensively as Plaxo has done.  If you aren’t already on Plaxo, at least the free version, I recommend giving it a try and synchronizing your Outlook Contacts, if nothing else, it’s a great tool for backing up your Outlook but I think once you have an opportunity to see what kind of a tool Plaxo is you will love it. 

I have talked about Plaxo on here a few times in the past but here’s a little more information in case you aren’t already familiar with them…

We started with a different kind of address book, one that leverages the power of the network effect to stay up-to-date. We securely host address books for more than 40 million people (and growing rapidly).

And now, we’re bringing those address books to life with “Pulse,” a new way to enrich your connection with the people in your life. Pulse is a bit like some social networks you’ve heard of, but it’s different in several key ways…

First, Pulse is not a place to see how many online “friends” you can collect. It’s meant to be a better way for you to stay in touch with the people you actually know and care about — your family, your real-world friends, and the people you know from business. Pulse makes it easy for you to see what they’re creating and sharing online — their blogs, the photos they’re uploading, their restaurant reviews, and so much more.

Second, Pulse is not a “walled garden.” It’s a dashboard for seeing what the people you know are creating and sharing all over the open web. You can hook your Pulse account up to all the places where you create or share stuff (your blog, Flickr, Twitter, Yelp, and more than 30 other sites).

But “open” does not mean “public.” With Plaxo, you have fine-grained control over what you share with whom, whether that’s your contact info — or your photos from last weekend. Our privacy policy is one of the strongest out there, and we are full supporters of the Bill of Rights for Users of the Social Web.

We are dedicated to the notion that your address book, your friends list, and your content belong to you, not to us. We make it easy for you to take them with you wherever you go and to use them with an ever-expanding array of sites, applications, and devices.

And just recently, we became a subsidiary of Comcast Interactive Media, with a plan to have Pulse become central to creating a unified “Social Media” experience across the Web and TV (and more). Plaxo remains an independent operation in Silicon Valley, serving our worldwide customer base. To learn more, read the announcement blogpost.

Source: www.plaxo.com