Content Matters

Plaxo, makers of the widely used address book maintenance app of the same name, is about to enter the social networking market.

According to VentureBeat, the Company on Monday plans to announce an open social network called Pulse.  The new Pulse application will allow users to view their contacts according to categories such as business, friends and family members.  VentureBeat has more screen shots here.

Robert Scoble met with Plaxo marketing head John McCrea earlier this week.  McCrea explained that Plaxo’s new social network will be completely open.  In other words, if I post some new content on my “Pulse page”, it will be available to everyone, not just those with a Pulse account.  That seems like a direct shot across the bow to Facebook, where you have to be a member to access other pages.

Plaxo also plans to leverage the “friends” categories described above to allow you to manage access to different information.  This is a current weakness of Facebook which I’ve described previously.  There’s no way for me to segment my Facebook data, indicating this section is for business colleagues and that section is for personal friends.

So, will Pulse be the Facebook-killer?  I doubt it. 

Plaxo does have some advantages; they have a user base of 15 million and the new features directly address the challenges Facebook will have in moving to the business community.  But, people view Plaxo as a tool, not a platform.  They may have 15 million users, but none are “active” users.  It’s just a tool that runs in the background for most.  The early adopters, whom Pulse needs to attract in order to gain viability, are now focusing on Facebook.  I’d be surprised to see them switch their focus to Pulse unless it quickly develops a large base of users.  Facebook was able to leverage colleges, then high schools, to grow virally.  A disparate base of business users of Plaxo are unlikely to come together as a critical mass.

That being said, I'll certainly be watching them this Monday.  And my guess is the folks at Facebook will too.