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.).
Yahoo is clearly focused on this, for example. And In December Plaxo bolted their social network, Pulse, onto Outlook. Now you could see what a friend was up to just before emailing them. Today they are rolling out the same functionality for the Mac Address Book.
Users must download a plugin that acts as a bridge between Mac’s sync services and your Plaxo account. This also sync’s your Mac address book with your Plaxo address book. In addition to basic contact data, Pulse will pull in recent friend actions on social networks (blogs, Digg, Twitter, delicious, Flickr, Yelp, etc.).
If you are a Pulse member, download the Mac client here.
If those are Joan’s real phone numbers, I hope you have her permission
This is not Good. Plaxo could get into trouble. You show workplace and home address. I think you need to see Harrison ford “Firewall” the movie.
You see. People show this. This would attract pedophiles, stalkers, rapist, ghost calls, etc.
If you saw this live news. Woooah… Does Plaxo or Techcrunch have premission to show Joan Mayer’s privacy? You must ask or put black highlight on Address, Business work,etc.
She’s not a real person. Random numbers.
This is basically address book synchronization plus a social action ‘ping’ right? These seem like they are actually two different (but hopefully consistent) social graphs. Will have to try it out.
It doesn’t matter if real or not real. Some people don’t feel right either.
Aways put black highlight on address on JPG.
I have question. How do you feel if this is your girlfriend’s address?
Looks a bit like this http://blog.fruux.net project
Too bad Plaxo has a disastrous flaw where they can totally hose your Apple Address Book by removing all your metadata in your AddressBook records:
They bury their-address-book destroying feature down deep: http://support....1&topic=128
Here’s the money-winning quote: “Plaxo for Mac does not sync every field/option of the Apple Address Book (at least for now). However, we do sync the most commonly used fields and support a rich collection of contact data.”
I used to recommend everyone I know use Plaxo to save their sync’ing issues between Macs and iPhones and other apps, but now I’m just trying to recover from the clobbering job it did. Thank god for backups.
“Privacy please” – please STFU
privacy please – honestly, you’re an idiot.
@ David Ulevitch. That is very old information, relating to a beta release from a long time ago. That issue was fixed several releases ago.
I’ve been syncing my Plaxo and Mac Address book for awhile now and have never had a problem. The Pulse part is new – and kind of annoying I think. I have liked the sync feature though; it keeps my iTouch updated too.
lol @ Arrington agreeing with ‘privacy please’ being an idiot.
Block his IP mike, retarded comments on your blog tarnish your brand and make intelligent commenters less likely to join further discussions.
I wonder whether we actually are experiencing social sites 2.0 coming to life. FaceBook, MySpace and all others (like our local grono.net) are maybe usefull – definitely addictive – but somehow artificial to me. I mean, it’s a communication tool you didn’t need before and probably would never miss on your own.
This thing is different. It utilises something you do all the time (mailing) while expanding it with additional information (up-to-date-status, what you do etc.). In essence, Facebook was meant to do just that, but instead it became a virtual space for a (definitely pleasant) waste of time. Now, I would expect more social networks expanding around our daily habitual activities. In other words – niche social networks for things we really do.
What’s your take on it guys? Michael?
I think “Privacy Please” tried to call her.
Setting aside all the obvious issues with Plaxo (spam, poor coding, “also ran” status) – and I’m a Plaxo *fan* if you can believe it – I think the real problem with this app is its context.
How often do you actually look at the address book? I often quick dial numbers in my phone (doesn’t require full address book lookup) and direct type my contact’s names in Mac Mail (ditto). The address book is only accessed directly by me when I need to make a change to someone’s info, or if my phone and mac are out of synch. Now if they added a feeds system to my address book, then maybe I’d find it more interesting.
Of course, since I live in New York, I sometimes (sheepishly) have to look up a fax number. Maybe that lowbrow/lowtech moment is when Plaxo plans to ensnare me.
I’ve been using Plaxos mac mail client since they first released it half a year ago or something. The first versions were not all that nice and very buggy. But now it is working really nice.
One important thing that I have noticed though, is that people that sign up to social services online very rarely uses their main email address. So this is a problem that is difficult to overcome.
When do we reach a point to trust a company – with a rough history I should add – with our regular email? Or is it just me that use a gmail or hotmail account for those types of services?
I used to use a mailinator.com address before I dared to give my gmail account, and now… well it might be ready to move on to my regular email.
//Anders
everyone gets inspired by facebook’s newsfeed but it does not work for good for everyone. Google made one for Orkut but hey, what changed? I got this feeling that lately plaxo doing all this stuff to make some hype and to get sold.
My trackback isn’t working, possibly because of my odd domain:
http://www.sco....ive-identi.html
And Mike, really, must you go out of your way to point out what an idiot that reader is? Perhaps you could just suggest that he jot down whatever connection he sees between this post and the NSA (”The same people that framed Pete Rose”) and send it to you via carrier pigeon.
@John McCrea
My desktop and laptop would disagree with your statement.