plaxo

I have really been impressed as of late with Plaxo. I can remember distinctly my first email from a friend that asked me to update my contact information via the Plaxo platform. Are you kidding me? There was no way in hell i was going to give my information to a startup that was undoubtedly going to sell my information once they went bankrupt.

What changed my mind was Plaxoed! (Not sure what's up with the exclamation point. Yahoo! influence I suppose). I followed Mark Jen in his transition from Microsoft to Google to Plaxo. And it was really his blogging that put my heart at ease regarding the service. One of the few cases where blogging has made me change my mind about a product.

They really have an uphill battle though in this adware, spyware, virus, trojan infested world. Who can you trust? By default we trust no one. But their platform requires trust to use. I eventually dove in and gave it a shot.

Overall it's just a superb way to keep your contacts and calendar synchronized. Some may not need this. But I definitely have hundreds of work contacts and hundreds of personal contacts that I keep separated on two machines (work and home). I also have work and personal calendar items that I keep on two machines. The thing that seals the deal for me is it creates two calendar and contact folders on my home and work machines. I don't really want these two things mixed up.

Whenever one of my 'plaxoed' contacts updates his information, my data on that person is updated. Whenever I add a new calendar item to my work calendar, my home machine reflects that change. The synching works very well.

And beyond that I can check both work and personal contacts and calendaring anywhere via a browser. This has come in handy in some emergency situations.

Anyway here is the entry Mark made that convinced me to try it out. Now maybe some of my friends will respond the my emails requesting personal information!