Plaxo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Plaxo | |
 |
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| Type of Company | private |
|---|---|
| Founded | July, 2001 |
| Headquarters | Mountain View, California |
| Key people | Ben Golub, President & CEO |
| Website | Plaxo |
Plaxo is an online address book service founded by Napster co-founder Sean Parker, Minh Nguyen, and two Stanford engineering students, Todd Masonis and Cameron Ring. Plaxo, based in Mountain View, California, is currently privately held and supported by venture capital. In October 2006, the website reported 15 million users. [1]
Plaxo provides automatic updating of contact information. Users and their contacts store their information on Plaxo's servers. When this information is edited by the user, the changes appear in the address books of all those who listed the account changer in their own books. Once contacts are stored in the central location, it is possible to list connections between contacts and access the address book from anywhere.
A Plaxo plug-in supports major address books including Outlook/Outlook Express, Mozilla Thunderbird, and Mac OS X's Address Book, though other ones can be supported through an application programming interface. Additionally, Plaxo can also be maintained through an online version.
Contents |
[edit] Partnerships
[edit] AOL
On July 7, 2005, Plaxo announced it had struck a deal with America Online to integrate its contact management service with its AOL and AOL Instant Messenger products. [2]
[edit] Criticism
Plaxo received criticism from technology journalist David Coursey, who was upset about receiving a number of requests from Plaxo users to update their contact information, and who wondered how the company was planning to make money from a free service that collects personal contact and network information.[3] However after "changes at Plaxo and discussions with the company's remaining co-founders", Coursey reversed his stance[4]. Plaxo also responded to these issues in a section of their website[5].
[edit] References
- ^ Plaxo (October 2, 2006). Plaxo Network Grows To 15 Million. Press Release.
- ^ Plaxo (July 6, 2005). America Online Inc. and Plaxo Inc. form agreement to help AOL members and AIM users better manage contact information. Press Release.
- ^ David Coursey (December 8, 2003). Why my address book is spamming you. ZDNet AnchorDesk.
- ^ David Coursey (September 9, 2004). Plaxo Reconsidered. eWeek.
- ^ Stacy Martin. Your Privacy and Security at Plaxo. Plaxo.
