Plaxo Goes Back to Its Roots as Address Book

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Remember Plaxo, the web’s address book that attempted to become a social network play? The company announced that it is relaunching as an address book.

Yup, Plaxo is returning to its roots as part of its repositioning.

As part of going back to its roots, the company is unveiling its address book-related services including the Plaxo Personal Assistant, a new service that makes automatic updates to its address book so that contacts remain relevant. Users of Plaxo can unify their contacts, eliminate duplicates and synchronize across different platforms and devices.

Looks promising? Well, that was the reason in the first place why Plaxo was born in 2002.

The Plaxo Personal Assistant ensures that a user’s personal address book contains contact information that is always accurate and complete as possible. This can be done as Plaxo compares contact information from public sources and if it thinks that there is something new and more accurate, the Personal Assistant would recommend a change information.

Seems like a pretty neat idea as long as Plaxo stays on the address book game. We don’t know for how long.

Biz Stone Joins Huffington Post, AOL

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The Huffington Post Media Group, now part of AOL Inc., announced that Biz Stone, Twitter’s co-founder, is joining the company to serve as Strategic Adviser for Social Impact. Stone will be advising both Huffington Post and AOL on cause-based initiatives and on developing a platform to facilitate people doing service in their communities. He is also expected to rally other companies to invest in and deploy best corporate practices, as well as create and develop a video series spotlighting leading companies and executives at the forefront of philanthropy and corporate responsibility.

Meanwhile, Huffington Post and AOL’s is intensifying its commitment to give back to the community, starting with encouraging its employees to volunteer in their communities, from preparing food for families and individuals in need at the LA Food Bank to dancing with elderly residents of nursing homes in New York City. As for Arianna Huffington (President of Huffington Post) and Tim Armstrong CEO of AOL), the duo is teaching a class at the Urban Academy of Arts and Letters in Brooklyn. They will also donate $50,000 to provide after-school activities for middle-school children in undeserved communities.

Any efforts like this from organizations that are doing well, is a welcome development. Besides, it seems that anywhere we look at now, including recent developments from all over, is a call for all of us to give back.

Newmark Launches craigconnects to Make a Difference

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Craig Newmark, best known for founding craigslist, has launched craigconnects, a web-based initiative to help people work together for the common good using the Internet.

The project, dubbed by Newmark as the biggest thing in his life, will identify, connect and protect organizations engaged in work that is socially responsible, self-perpetuating and replicable. The initial list of organizations includes dozens working in the areas of community building, social media for social progress, journalism integrity, open and accountable government, service and volunteering, veterans’ issues, and peace in the Middle East. The public is invited to submit recommendations for others to be added to the list via the craigconnects website. [Read more…]

Demand Media acquires CoveritLive

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Content and social media company Demand Media, Inc. has acquired CoveritLive, a provider of real-time commentary, instant reader polling and question and answer capabilities to companies like ESPN, Ford, News Corp. and BBC. Terms of agreement of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Demand Media has a minority interest in CoveritLive since 2009. Today’s announcement of the acquisition will position CoveritLive as one of Demand Media’s portfolio of social solutions, along with Pluck.

Events hosted on CoveritLive attracts an audience of over 60 million people every month, 60% of which comes from outside the United States. Just recently, the company powered conversations during the Academy Awards for People, TMZ, Entertainment Weekly, Variety and the Daily Beast.

CoveritLive’s reach, coupled with the more than 100 million monthly visitors from Demand Media’s vertical web properties, is expected to strengthen the company’s original content offerings.

As expected, Apple introduces iPad 2

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My pity goes to those who bought iPad yesterday.

As we were expecting, Apple has introduced iPad 2 with an entirely new design that is 33 percent thinner and 15 percent lighter than the original. While maintaining its 9.7-inch LED-backlit LCD screen, iPad 2 boasts of having Apple’s new dual-core A5 processor for faster performance. It now has two cameras for FaceTime and Photo Booth and for capturing 720p HD video. Despite all the new features, battery life remains at 10 hours. The new tablet also runs on both AT&T and Verizon’s 3G networks. Black or white? They have both colors. The new iPad 2 Smart Cover with self-aligning magnetic hinge is also an innovative piece of product by itself. Prices stay the same.

What was more stunning was the presence of Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who is currently on medical leave, to present the new product. The obviously ill head of Apple received a standing ovation from the throng of press people who witnessed the event.

“With more than 15 million iPads sold, iPad has defined an entirely new category of mobile devices,” jobs said. “While others have been scrambling to copy the first generation iPad, we’re launching iPad 2, which moves the bar far ahead of the competition and will likely cause them to go back to the drawing boards yet again.”

Would I buy iPad 2? I doubt. I’ll wait for iPad 3 which we expect to be better than iPad 2.