CalendarReview

Plaxo just released a press release announcing their take over by Comcast, the leading provider of entertainment, information and communications products and services (and Plaxo’s largest customer and partner). Plaxo will remain an independent operation. So, what about current Plaxo members? The services you know and enjoy from Plaxo will not only continue, but will continue to evolve and improve. In addition, both of our services benefit from “network effect,” which is to say that the more people who use them, the more useful they become.

Online travel organization startup TripIt will today release some new features that aim to further simplify booking travel online. TripIt now syncs itineraries with any personal calendar that supports iCal, including Google Calendar, Outlook 2007, Plaxo, and others. What this means is that TripIt users no longer need to manually update their calenders with trip information; TripIt now does it all, adding details such as flights, hotels, rental cars, restaurant reservations to supported apps.

Plaxo, Inc. introduced Plaxo 3.0, a major new release of its market-leading “smart address book” service. Plaxo 3.0 is the first online address book and calendar to synchronize between Microsoft, Google, Yahoo!, AOL, Mac OSX, Thunderbird, and mobile phones. The new version makes simple what had until now been impossible: bridging between disparate tools and services with automated, multi-way synchronization — without cables, cradles, or complicated software set-up. Plaxo 3.0, now available for free in seven languages, is currently in beta and accessible to all at http://beta.plaxo.com.

Plaxo is looking for beta testers for their new Plaxo 3.0 version. I sent an email and will update you when invited.  I hope the HipCal acquisition juiced up the calendar.
We’ve been hinting for months now about an all-new and improved version of Plaxo Online (called “Plaxo 3.0″…very creative, huh?). And, we are almost ready to go prime-time, but first we need help testing it on our most daring, helpful, and dedicated users (before unleashing it on everyone else). 

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See what people are saying about Plaxo on Technorati.

Ray from Profy reviewed Plaxo. His conclusion:
Plaxo has remained the same for some years now, the service is simple and effective, it is the de-facto leader in contact management and about a quarter of my contacts use it.

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What Plaxo says about itself:

Plaxo Basic is Plaxo’s core service and is free to everyone who joins. You update your info, your friends update theirs, and everyone stays in touch! Download any of the toolbars below to access a single up-to-date address book across all of the applications you use.

• Update your address book when friends change their contact info
• Update friends’ address books when your contact info changes
• Sync your contacts, calendar, tasks, notes across Plaxo-enabled applications
• Get reminded of a friend’s birthday just a few days before
• Receive a Plaxo alert whenever a contact’s info has changed

Company Blog:

• Happy First Birthday, Pulse! (And thanks for driving 225% year-over-year growth for Plaxo)
• Plaxo is going Dutch (really.)
• Now the Deal is Closed: Plaxo has Become a Business Unit of Comcast Interactive Media
• Gnip launches and Plaxo's pulse is racing
• Plaxo and FriendConnect are now Best Friends
• Yahoo! Releases Address Book API; Naturally, Plaxo is already live with it!
• Yahoo sync: it's back and better than ever!
• The Plaxo Directory Is Now Live
• Data Ownership: Empowering The Plaxo User
• Comcast to Acquire Plaxo; Pulse to Become Central to Creating Unified “Social Media” Experience Across the Web, the TV (and more)
• Plaxo Becomes Social Graph Provider in Support of Google Friend Connect
• Sharing the disqussion
• Rounding Out the Pulse Feature Set: Adding People Search
• “Open” is Good for Business (Part II); The Rise of a "True" Social Graph
• Plaxo now supports clickpass for easier OpenID

Answer: HipCal (www.hipcal.com).

Plaxo announced the acquisition of HipCal, LLC, based in Troy, NY. You can read the formal press release at: Plaxo’s website. However, I wanted to give you an insider’s view of why we joined forces with these young guns from upstate New York.

You’ll have to read the entire article to find out what we both have in common with pimps.