Comcast Buys Plaxo For Social Media: Google & Cisco Pass

Plaxo today announced that they have just signed an agreement to be acquired by Comcast. Details of the price were not disclosed but it is rumored to be in the $140 - $175 million range.

The company blog says "Plaxo Pulse is to become central to creating a unified “Social Media” experience across the web and television". Not sure what exactly that means for Comcast? Given that 75% of Plaxo's users are business users. I am surprised that Plaxo was not acquired by Google or Cisco.

Google because Plaxo could have been the center piece for its OpenSocial and Friends Connect initiatives, it could provide Google with its own LinkedIn type service and become a sourcing pool to extend Google Apps into the enterprise. Further Plaxo is funded by Google's Founding Board Member Ram Shriram. So the sale would not have been a stretch.

Even more puzzling is why Cisco didn't jump on it - it would have been great to drive adoption of Cisco's Webex products. In fact Cisco has invested close to $15 million in Plaxo. At the time of the investment a Cisco spokes person said "The investment by Cisco reflects an interest in the emerging social-networking space, Plaxo's strength lies in its ability to connect people with those they already know or do business with".

For Comcast this is an expensive way to get into Social Media when there are far better alternatives that are more synergistic to its core business (maybe Comcast knows something I don't). Plaxo's site is still in beta after all these years and millions of dollars in development. Further, their traffic is headed downward. Plaxo management probably decided that any exit is better than no exit. Your thoughts?

Google and Facebook Join Data Portability

In an announcement yesterday, Google, Facebook, and Plaxo joined the DataPortability.org Workgroup. The announcement stated that as key players in the social networking space, "their joint support of the DataPortability initiative presents a new opportunity for the next generation of software - particularly in the fields of social software, user rights and interoperability". The DataPortability initiative is focused on creating end-to-end data portability for which it claims the technology already exists so that "as users, our identity, photos, videos and other forms of personal data should be discoverable by, and shared between our chosen tools or vendors".

Data Portability: LinkedIn Allows You To Export Your Data

Big storm this week in the blogosphere as Robert Scoble's Facebook account was temporarily suspended for breaking the site's terms of service. He was using a new tool from Plaxo Pulse that was extracting and matching Plaxo and Facebook users. As Robert said: "I wanted to get all my contacts into my Microsoft Outlook address book and hook them up with the Plaxo system, which 1,800 of my friends are already on." Scoble was eventually reinstated but the debate about data portability now rages on (see also DataPortability.org).

A few minutes ago, I discovered that LinkedIn now allows you to export your data in various formats (.CSV and .VCF). I don't know how long they've been offering this feature (not long I suspect) but it's an extremely smart move to position themselves as the definite business-oriented social network. Bravo!