MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Plaxo, Inc. creators of the world’s most powerful address book, today announced a company relaunch that refocuses on solving the increasing problem of how to keep your contact information updated and relevant. As part of this repositioning, Plaxo is segueing out of social networking.
To mark the return to its roots, the company is unveiling a family of address book-related services and the availability of Plaxo Personal Assistant, a completely new service that intelligently makes automatic updates to your address book so contact information is constantly relevant. Available for purchase now, Plaxo Personal Assistant is aimed at on-the-go professionals who demand an always-available, always-reliable address book, or any connected individual who has contact information spread across multiple places. Plaxo is re-dedicating efforts to helping its customers manage this critical information.
“Plaxo is back and we’ve got a relentless focus on the address book,” said Justin Miller, chief executive officer at Plaxo.
Most people have partial address books that can be found in a number of social networks, Web-based and client-based email accounts and on multiple mobile devices. Keeping those connections safe and up-to-date has never been more challenging. Layer on top of that the need to access your latest content wherever you are and the challenge gets more complicated. Since 2002, Plaxo has tackled the problem of out-of-date contact information, syncing with the most popular platforms and safeguarding connections. Using Plaxo, people can unify their contacts, eliminate duplicates and synchronize across a broad range of platforms and devices – including Outlook for PC and Mac, Entourage, Mac Address Book, and Gmail. Now, with Personal Assistant, Plaxo is taking contact management to the next level by automatically making customer data better.
“In a highly digital, connected world, with so many devices, it is important for people to have contact information at their fingertips regardless of device, platform or location,” Miller said. “Our customers appreciate that we already provide an up-to-date and secure address book that is accessible 24/7, but they’ve also told us they need help keeping their contacts truly relevant. We’ve listened to that feedback and are now introducing Plaxo Personal Assistant, an intelligent productivity service that actually works as an assistant would, by automatically maintaining critical address book information.”
Plaxo Personal Assistant ensures your personal address book contains contact information that is always as accurate and complete as possible. Without sharing any of its users’ private information, Plaxo compares contact information from public sources with information in your address book. If it thinks there is new, accurate information, Personal Assistant makes a recommendation that you can accept or reject.
Plaxo Personal Assistant is part of a comprehensive suite of services that improves address book management, access and security for anybody who needs to stay connected or whose contacts are their business currency. Plaxo’s complete family of services is now composed of:
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Plaxo
Basic: Unification of fragmented contact info, access
anywhere, anytime; now includes Plaxo De-Duper
(free service)
- Plaxo for Mobile: Apps for iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile (free service); Android app coming soon
- Plaxo eCards: Cards for 50+ occasions and birthday reminders (free/paid service)
- Plaxo Platinum Sync: Two-way, real-time sync keeps your address book consistent and accessible from the essential communication tools you use (paid service)
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Plaxo
Personal Assistant: New intelligent productivity service which
automatically maintains critical address book information (paid
service)
- Pricing: Platinum Sync and Personal Assistant are offered individually or at a discount when purchased together
Plaxo is complementary to social networks and media companies by helping users pull in disparate sets of contacts (e.g. from Facebook, LinkedIn, Gmail, Yahoo!, Hotmail, CSV, etc.) into one common, secure online address book. Additionally, it syncs with leading mobile platforms including: Apple iOS, Google Android and RIM BlackBerry to pull in those address books. Because Plaxo offers two-way, real-time sync, updates made from one sync point are reflected in every sync point – providing a consistent, updated address book from wherever you access it.
Frank Gillett, vice president and principal analyst with Forrester Research, Inc writes in his March 2011 Forrester blog post, Solving The Duplicate Address Book Problem Is One Of The Drivers For Development Of Personal Cloud, “…many people don’t seem to be aware that there’s a better way…some people try to use Facebook or LinkedIn as their address book. But many users of those services don’t post full contact information.” He writes that contacts or address books are “ripe for help from personal cloud services.”
Plaxo product updates slated for Q2 2011 include: refreshing the Outlook toolbar; updating and adding new mobile platforms; and, adding data sources to Personal Assistant. Stay abreast of Plaxo news and engage with us here:
About Plaxo
Plaxo helps over 50M people around the world stay connected with the people who are important to them in business and life. The company develops the only intelligent, self-updating address book that solves the problem of keeping contact information in sync and relevant. Plaxo enables users to have one up-to-date address book across all of the most popular Web-based and client-based email accounts, social networks, and mobile devices – providing one unified address book that is securely stored and available where and when they need it. Plaxo is a registered trademark of Plaxo, Inc. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners. http://www.plaxo.com/