Plaxo - You Gotta Use It to Manage Contacts!

When I got my first invitation to use Plaxo from a relative of mine, I was suspicious. Any company that was offering to help me manage all my contact (and calendar) information at no charge HAD to be up to something no good. Well, I've been using it for about 6 months now and I am absolutely sold!!! Basically you install a Plaxo program on your computer that copies your contact data up to your own private space on the Plaxo server somewhere in the sky, okay I mean Internet. The first benefit is that you just created an off-site backup copy of your contact data!

The second benefit is that other people automatically help you keep your data up to date! Plaxo searches through your contact list for people who are also Plaxo members. If they are a member, it will let you know if their information is different from what you have on them. Let's say I have my aunt's email address on file but she changed her phone number. Plaxo alerts me that it would like to change the phone number for her and asks if that is okay. Way cool! If you add someone's email to your contact list, Plaxo (depending on the privacy settings of the other person) may offer to fill in the rest of the info. If you only have email, maybe it will add phone and mailing address.

The third benefit comes when you use Plaxo on more than one computer in your life. Let's say you have a work computer and a home computer, or two home computers. Install Plaxo on both, linking first one dataset and then the other, and Plaxo will synchronize your data between both machines and your web-located copy everytime you are connected to the web.

The fourth benefit, which I haven't used much yet, is to provide a place where you can access your contact/calendar info on the web. If you are away from your computer(s) but need the info normally stored on them, you can just log into the Plaxo site.

There are other benefits available for an annual charge -- mobile device access to email and contactc, duplicate removal, 24 hour help -- but even if you only use the free service, it is a tremendous tool! I give it two big thumbs up.