Tag Archives: Plaxo

Apr 06 2008
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Essential Twitter Tools: My Two Cents

Woody, Up Close and Personal

How can we get the most out of the revolutionary “microblogging” platform Twitter?

Influential Forrester analyst and veteran blogger, Jeremiah Owyang, recently posted on the topic of “essential Twitter tools.” I can certainly relate, as an increasingly heavy (a.k.a, addicted) Twitter user. Twitter is, in my opinion, a first-class citizen of the Social Web. Very open. Very social.

I have tried all the tools Jeremiah mentions, and for me, the key is search. I mourn the loss to Terraminds, but have happily replaced it with Tweetscan. (Although, when it was down for hours today, I had serious withdrawal.) Why? Because it really matters to me what people are tweeting about my company (Plaxo). When someone has a problem, complaint, question, or suggestion for Plaxo and voices it via Twitter, I want to know. Many a new conversation or relationship has been struck as a result of this facility.

My only addition to Jeremiah’s list is Plaxo Pulse (the first social aggregator). There, by virtue of the foundation of my unified address book, I am “following” a bunch of Twitterers that I am not following directly in Twitter (or indirectly via FriendFeed). And, because Pulse allows for status sync with Twitter, many of those messages show up simply as status updates.

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Apr 03 2008
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The “Pulse of OpenID”

Here’s an excellent resource for getting a sense of what’s currently possible with OpenID. It’s a post from Sara Perez on ReadWriteWeb, with a breathtaking list of OpenID providers and “relying parties” (sites where you can use your OpenID).

While the skeptics remain, it is clear that there has been growing momentum for this critical building block of the Social Web, especially in the past few months.

I’d also recommend tapping into the wisdom of Joseph Smarr, who is both a passionate advocate of OpenID and an early implementer, as Plaxo’s chief platform architect. Plaxo rolled out support for OpenID late last year, becoming one of the first large-scale consumer sites to accept OpenID. And most recently, Joseph worked with Yahoo! on their implmentation, allowing users to log in to Plaxo with their Yahoo! credentials (using OpenID behind the scenes). Here’s an interview I did with him on the day of that announcement. It’s a good intro to the topic:

For developers with an interest in implementing OpenID, I recommend Joseph’s “A Recipe for OpenID-Enabling Your Site.” 

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Mar 27 2008
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Making OpenID Consumer-Friendly: Behind the Scenes

Integrating Clickpass and Plaxo

 I enjoyed reading detailed writeups of the collaboration between Clickpass and Plaxo to launch a consumer-friendly implemenation of OpenID. Peter Nixey, of Clickpass, (above, right) published his here. And Plaxo’s Joseph Smarr (above, left) has his post here.

These two pieces provide great insight into the launch of a company. Every entrepreneur will enjoy the read.

One addition to the story from my perspective: Joseph writes code even faster than he talks (and if you don’t know what that means, watch this clip from SXSW!)

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Mar 16 2008
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More from the Portable Social Networks Panel at SXSW

Sorry it’s taken me so long to upload this additional clip. Here Joseph Smarr of Plaxo helps make that case that “open” is good for business — that rather than being a zero-sum game best played by protecting user lock-in, we are all better offer going after the growing pie!

And, yes, Joseph actually talks that fast; the tape is not sped up. In fact, there was no tape. I recorded it on my MPEG-4 camcorder from Sanyo.

There’s a nice writeup of the panel over at ReadWriteWeb.

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Mar 04 2008
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Charlene Li’s Presentation: A Must Read

Okay. Now I’m really bummed that I wasn’t at Graphing Social Patterns. When I read Charlene Li’s slides online, I was blown away. For folks who want to know the next phase of the web, and want to understand where data portability fits in, this deck is a must-read.

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Jan 25 2008
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Plaxo’s Joseph Smarr on Google OpenSocial

At the recent OpenSocial Hackathon, hosted by SixApart, Google’s Patrick Chanezon interviewed Plaxo’s Joseph Smarr. Among his questions, “You saw a spike in growth when you announced support for OpenSocial. Has the strong growth continued?”

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Jan 14 2008
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OpenID: The Time Has Come

2008 got off with a bang! Looks like this will be the year for “data portability,” with users getting ownership of their identity and personal info, having control over who they share it with, and enjoying the freedom to take it with them wherever they go. All the things spelled out in the Bill of Rights for Users of the Social Web.

Next up? Building momentum behind the open standards that will lay the foundation for the open social web. Chief among these: OpenID. There’s a relatively new version of the spec that is now “ready for prime time”. There’s great community work to flesh out interoperability with other standards (like OAuth) and testing of implementations. This weekend, SixApart hosted a roll-up-your-sleeves OpenIDDevCamp. Joseph Smarr of Plaxo has a great write-up. And here’s another one.

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Nov 05 2007
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Yahoo!, Where are You?

As the industry was shook by one earthquake after another (first Microsoft’s deal with Facebook, then Google’s OpenSocial move), many asked, “Where’s Yahoo!?” Well, it turns out that “where?” is an important question to the folks at Yahoo!’s Brickhouse. I learned about the impending news via Michael Arrington’s Twitter post this evening, which I saw in my Plaxo Pulse. Minutes later, TechCrunch broke the news about what looks like a very exciting and open play around geo-location APIs and services. This is, indeed, a critically important piece of the open social web. Will be interesting to see how/if it hooks up with the Google OpenSocial stuff.

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Nov 05 2007
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Joseph Smarr on OpenSocial

As part of the launch of their OpenSocial initiative, Google interviewed key partners to help explain the technology and why they are supporting it. Here’s a great interview with Plaxo’s Chief Platform Architect, Joseph Smarr. If you’re still trying to figure out this space, and why Plaxo and other leading players, like MySpace, LinkedIn, and Friendster are jumping on board the “open” initiative, this is a must-see interview.

And this just in…

Joseph shares lots of details of the story leading up to last week’s Googlequake on his blog. Way cool. Especially toasting marshmallows with Larry, Sergey, and Eric!

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Oct 25 2007
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Has Facebook “Jumped the Shark”?

The Wall

I suppose I should have seen this coming. Feelings run deep with respect to Microsoft and on the topic of privacy. If the Facebook/Microsoft deal gives Microsoft access to the Facebook social graph in detail for the purpose of ad targeting, might this cause concern and consternation, at least for some?

Apparently, the answer is, “Yes.”

In a post entitled, “This is a poke-free zone,” a South African blogger, Ivo, says he’s leaving Facebook, closing his account there, and heading over to Orkut. It seems he also the created a group on Facebook called “If Facebook sells to Microsoft, we’re leaving”!

And in a post entitled “Please Turn Out the Lights,” Wired Gecko jumps on the bandwagon, and indicates he’s leaving Facebook for Orkut and Plaxo’s Pulse. 

A few lone wolves, or the beginnings of a mass migration?

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