
Plaxo, the free contact application that automatically updates address books via e-mail, has gained notoriety since it was launched just over a year ago. Now its creators are pinning the application's future on a paid, business-oriented version to create the company's first significant revenue stream. However, given the privacy concerns Plaxo raises and the widely held belief that the e-mails it generates are at best annoying and at worst spam, the application might hit a wall as it tries to penetrate corporate America.
Plaxo has garnered more than 2.5 million users who copy the address books in their Microsoft Outlook e-mail clients to the Plaxo server, which generates e-mails requesting contacts update their phone numbers or addresses, and keeps the server and local copy up to date. Plaxo doesn't charge users for the software, instead collecting $20 per year from customers interested in "VIP" support. The company also says there are plenty of small businesses using the tool, especially since it added group calendaring and expanded note-taking capabilities in Version 2.0 that was released in May.
http://www.plaxo.com/
