In late 2007, a friend told me about Plaxo. I was pleasantly surprised. At that time, I was looking for a way to return to my Outlook calendar. I also wanted to be able to upload events from Outlook to my Google calendar, and this hand is painful. (Google is adding more of the features that make this process easier). I discovered that Plaxo did much more than that. Some of it is very useful. Some do not.

Plaxo pulled in all my contacts with Gmail and Yahoo Mail, and then download the data in my Outlook address book. He also backed up phone numbers from my cell phone (which is just plain old razor phone). Plaxo made ​​my life much easier, it is a great utility for managing contacts. After using it for awhile, I discovered that they can "connect " with people at Plaxo, which ensures that both will keep up-to-date contact information for each other. If another user on Plaxo changes his or her phone number, phone number, which will automatically update in your Plaxo address book. If you synchronize your Plaxo for Outlook, an update will be automatically updated in your Outlook. Probably, if you use a BlackBerry or similar device, updates will be pushed there as well (although I do not use the Blackberry, so I could not say for sure). Plaxo also provides a duplicate removal feature that claims to eliminate duplicate contacts and calendar events. I am not personally tried it.

In the months since I joined Plaxo, they've started doing some things that make no sense. It looks like you're trying to be the next Facebook or FriendFeed. They add to their hyped social networking features more than anything else. If you read an overview of their company, they will tell you that their service is all about staying in touch with the people they know. No wonder people would not. They say nothing about their address book and calendar management features that are unmatched anywhere else. Instead, they are what they sound like social networks, which is something they are not particularly good. It's like Mercedes-Benz began selling hamburgers next door at McDonald's, and was buried, and no mention of their cars at the bottom of their ads. This is a classic case of brand dilution through over-extension.

It seems that Plaxo's efforts to brand themselves as social networking took them from their primary area of ​​focus. Instead of committing to the task of making Plaxo a world-class tool for managing contacts, and focusing all your efforts on this, that you decided to become all things to all people. effect of these decisions is that they put their resources into constantly improving and developing their core business. Instead, they lose their means of fighting a losing battle. Wal-Mart executives knew that they can not out-Amazon, Amazon, and Plaxo are not going to "out of Facebook" Facebook, either. I am writing this in hopes that someone at Plaxo will not read it. They have built a great service, and it would be a shame to see them go to waste, because it is not entirely clear.

If you have not tried Plaxo, check it out, especially if you do not have anything in place to back up your contacts. Chances are, Plaxo is more useful than you think.