Plaxo 3.0: Bringing web and desktop PIM together like never before
For about a month now, the kind folks at Plaxo have allowed us to play with the beta of Plaxo 3.0, a major update to their unique service that takes the 'management' out of desktop + online PIM.
Context & Ripple Effects
Plaxo built its name syncing desktop address books, and this beta marks its bid to turn that synced contact base into something more social: the company has said outright that 3.0 is an effort to catch up with LinkedIn and Facebook rather than remain a PIM utility. The release lands two weeks after TechCrunch reported talks in which Xing may have been weighing an acquisition of Plaxo — unconfirmed at the time, but it frames 3.0 as a product refresh issued while the company's strategic future was openly in question.
First-order effects
- Users of Plaxo's address book and calendar get one synchronized view across desktop and web clients, with Microsoft's services pulled into the same sync loop from day one.
- Plaxo stops competing as a contact-sync add-on and starts competing head-on with LinkedIn and Facebook for the same users' relationship data.
Second-order effects
- Rival social networks now face an incumbent that owns the desktop Outlook-style workflow they never controlled, forcing them to answer on synchronization and interoperability rather than just network size.
- Whoever acquires or partners with Plaxo gets a pre-synced cross-platform contact graph — the very asset the reported Xing interest implied.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, PIM and social networking converge: the address book becomes the social graph, and the durable position belongs to whichever service keeps desktop, web, and third-party clients in sync rather than to any single network.
- Desktop software vendors like Microsoft gain leverage as integration points — controlling what syncs well becomes a competitive tool in the social layer.
The trend: Personal information management is merging into social networking, with synchronized address books emerging as the raw material of the social graph.