Bet you didn’t know Plaxo had a blog, didja? Me neither, until yesterday that is, when I stumbled on this entry: Ta-Dah! It’s Jajah. Yesterday Plaxo announced a partnership with JaJah to provide a new service: Plaxo Click to Call.  Plaxo has placed itself squarely in the maelstrom of Voice 2.0, where the monetizable assets are identity, applications, and access. With Plaxo Click to Call, you click on a directory entry in Outlook or on the Plaxo web app, and moments later (courtesy of Jajah), phones ring.  Crude but a great start to getting more value from the Plaxo database.
CEO Ben Golub elaborates more on Plaxo’s plans in an interview with CNET’s Elinor Mills. He says:
“We want to go from being an island to being the center of gravity for all communications. We’re trying to become a needed part of the Internet infrastructure.”
and…
“Voice over IP, social networks, new devices, personalization, triple-play services from carriers all need a smart address book for the network. Right now, there isn’t one.”
Yup. It’s a rough and tumble market, though, what with Verisign, XDI, Google, Skype, MSN, AOL, Reunion, Liberty Alliance and many others all trying to execute the same play. Plaxo is smart to build an open set of APIs for others to plug into. They’ve been an API provider for this kind of service longer than anyone else.
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry maker Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
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