Last week C|Net was one of many folks hinting, or out right saying, that Plaxo was going to announce/launch a social networking site today. As you know by now, Plaxo’s Pulse is out today:
Pulse will likely give a considerable advantage to Plaxo in that it puts a friendlier face to a networking site that, as of now, has a strictly business reputation: kind of like Plaxo’s version of the cute BlackBerry Pearl. There is nothing really revolutionary about any of the technology behind it, but it does present concepts like microblogging and RSS aggregation in a way that just about anyone’s mom could easily understand.
If anything, Pulse is evidence that the “microblogging” model may not have run out of steam quite yet. Services like Twitter, Pownce, and Tumblr have been hailed as borderline revolutionary by social-media junkies, but they’ve failed to make much of a blip on the radar of the average Web user. While we probably won’t see our less tech-savvy friends using Twitter any time soon, Pulse is evidence that similar concepts can nevertheless appeal to the more Luddite-inclined among us. Source: Plaxo launches new social network, Pulse–and it’s a lot like Pownce | The Social – CNET News.com
Some of us who played with the “new” Plaxo earlier this summer were given a taste of Pulse early on. I had my RSS feeds, etc already in there when I came into Pulse today. The early thoughts from Wisdump were anything but flattering, but really neither you nor I should be swayed by the “early looks”. The proof is in the pudding.
Unfortunately I don’t think the pudding has quite set yet. While Sam Sethi says some of the features to come are very cool, Sam’s promised review hasn’t been published yet that I can see (this isn’t a slam on Sam, I know he’s busy … just trying to get his attention 
), and what I’ve seen is interesting, but I wasn’t hit with the “OMG this is sooo cool” factor. Granted I think I said the same thing about Twitter.
Regardless of whether Pulse is cool or not, what is going on now is an effort to learn from what Facebook is doing well copy it, and skip what they are missing the boat on.
The whole discussion about Facebook for business, is Facebook useful for marketing. All these are open questions. People ask me about Facebook. I tell them I’m on it and I kinda use it. I’ve joined I don’t know how many groups, but I don’t participate. Why? Because they don’t get my attention. I don’t get e-mails that there is something new there. I don’t get an RSS feed with updates. I have to go to each group and look. Eh, I don’t have that kind of time.
Back to Plaxo. It has built up a very large database of people. I’ve been a member for about four years plus I guess. I’ve always looked at them as a CYA address book and calendar backup. Social network? Not so much. That could change though. If Pulse can let me build self-organizing groups and send me updates, if they can let other people see the information, if I wish, then I think we might have something there.
No, it isn’t going to be a “Facebook killer”, I think only Facebook itself can do that, but for business folks it might be the place where business stuff is done.
Maybe I can steal a few minutes from some folks at Plaxo to chat about it. Love to do something on PimpYourWork about Plaxo.
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