Where Does Plaxo Pulse Fit?
I've gotten a flurry of invites to Plaxo Pluse in the past week or so.
Most of these have come from distant contacts, people I may have done business with 4-6 years ago, but whom I don't consider part of my current network.
I guess that makes sense, as Plaxo's core product is built upon each user's Outlook address book and also captures the email addresses of anyone with whom you've exchanged emails in the past. Interestingly, though, hardly any of the invites which I've received are from people to whom I'm connected via LinkedIn or Facebook.
Which brings me to the question that I posed in the title of this post - where does Plaxo Pluse fit in the world of social networks? LinkedIn has a straightforward value proposition - I can reach the network contacts of my network for business purposes (recruitment or business development). Facebook is more the entertainment side of social networking, with a glimmer of hope for b2b potential to be built on their platform. The new OpenSocial will, in theory, create a platform that I can use for development of b2b social apps. But what value will Plaxo Pulse offer?
I know what I'd like it to become. I think that Plaxo Pulse could become the open source social graph that I've posted about previously. Plaxo already contains my extended address book and has triggers to alert users to changes among their contacts, so it could easily serve as the sole platform for maintaining my social graph. But, there's no obvious business model for them in doing so. With its "lifestream", a summary feed of the various feeds of my contacts, it could become another Friendfeed, but I'm not sure that's a sustainable model either. Or, are they simply looking to improve their valuation by positioning themselves as a social network without any real direction?
Any thoughts on where Plaxo Pulse is headed or what their positioning might be? I'd welcome your thoughts in the comments.
Plaxo Pulse is a concept in progress. Imagine if all your friends are on Plaxo (or at least entered in all their feeds), Pulse would be extremely useful. Of course, you'll argue that every social network will be useful if all your friends are on it. However, what if it's possible to see all your friends' updates without them on Plaxo Pulse?
I think that's what open social graph means. With social networks opening up, it doesn't matter what your friends are using, or what networks they are on, and you should be able to see their updates. We have built such a system (http://www.spokeo.com) to illustrate the power of the open social concept. If you want to check it out, please contact me to receive an invite.
Posted by: Harrison | November 06, 2007 at 09:27 PM
Pulse is a next-generation social network. How is it different? It is the first social utility to effectively span professional and personal life; and it is the first truly open social network (note: "open" needs some explaining and does not mean lack of privacy). How does it span professional and personal? By letting you categorize each connection you make there as family, friend, or business network, and then leveraging that to let you share different stuff with different people, instead of "letting it all hang out" as you do on most social networks. How is it "open"? First, it aggregates content from over 30 sites, like Flicky, Twitter, Yelp, etc. Everyone keeps using all the different tools of the open social web, and Pulse takes the effort out of seeing what the people you know are saying, doing, creating, bookmarking, and Digging. It's also "open" in that you have full ownership of your personal info; you control whether to share it and with whom; and you have the freedom to take it with you. Plaxo Pulse is part of the OpenSocial platform created by Google, and we're working with others on the next big challenge of the open social web: friends list portability. Sorry for the long comment!
Posted by: John McCrea | November 07, 2007 at 12:47 PM