Plaxo Acquisition Powers Comcast’s Social Networking Plan

It’s an interesting paradox – folks are just as quick to call everything a social networking company as they are to dismiss the phenomenon as a trend, fad or phase. In truth, both sides are wrong.

Comcast Corp.’s purchase this week of Plaxo is a perfect case in point. People have called Plaxo a social networking firm even while its CEO describes the company as a networked address book. Nonetheless, social networking is evolving quickly, is embraced by huge operators and is clearly a long-term means of enhancing what those operators offer.

In the race to differentiate triple-play services, Comcast bought Plaxo because the networked address book is the core capability needed to enable interactive social networking features that can be added to service bundles.

And Plaxo is a proven – and widely used – entity that’s been around for more than a few years.

If applied correctly at Comcast, Plaxo will raise the value of voice, data and video service combos. That’s because it will add unified communications capabilities and community features, something that everyone who isn’t one of the top 5 Web portals wants and needs to do.

But huge parts of the industry need to get beyond treating social networking and the capabilities that enable it as being Facebook- or YouTube-centric in nature, not to mention capabilities restricted to certain age demographics. Take the blinders off. Comcast did some time ago when it began partnering with Plaxo.

Now the news and analysis:

Plaxo will help power the cable giant’s SmartZone site, providing triple-play customers with a central location from which to send and receive e-mails, instant messages, and check voice mail online.

The value and terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Buying Plaxo, which already worked with Comcast as a close partner, marks an important step beyond ratcheting up Internet speeds and adding HD content. This focuses on interactive communications capabilities for its triple-play subscribers.

“By being part of the SmartZone unified communications center, for example, we can make it easier for people to communicate with friends, families, and customers, whether they are at home using the array of Comcast communications services ... or at work using Outlook, on the road, at an Internet café, on their mobile, etc.,” explained Plaxo CEO Ben Golub.

{vpipagebreak} 

Golub said that by integrating a smart address book into its services, Comcast will make its services more interesting and valuable to subscribers. The strategy also “will serve as a model for many other service providers in making triple-play services truly integrated,” said Golub. “Done right, the smart, networked address book and calendar should be able to form the foundation for vastly improved communications, content, and community functions.”

Golub said his company has announced a few similar partnerships in the past, including AOL and Openwave, and are starting to work with a wide variety of other service providers, social networks and device manufacturer.

“I think the industry is waking up to the power of smart, networked address books.”

The Plaxo acquisition is part of a large and accelerating trend where big cablecos build more than one network by acquiring content companies, sports networks and assets for Web destinations. Cablevision Systems Corp. (http://www.cablevision.com) last week paid nearly $500 million for the Sundance Channel, for example. And Comcast has combined a slew of assets, including Fandango, to build and launch Fancast.com, its entertainment destination.

Telcos have focused on network deployment and customer acquisition for TV-driven bundles, steering well clear of buying from cable’s shopping list.

Share this article: Email, Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Yahoo!MyWeb, Windows Live Favorites, Furl
Add this article feed to: RSS, My Yahoo, Newsgator, Bloglines