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Plaxo acquired by Comcast

May 15th, 2008 • Related • Filed Under

Comcast Corp. said Wednesday that it will acquire Plaxo Inc., capping off a “redemption story” for backers of the early social networking site. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. Plaxo, backed by more than $20 million in venture funding from Sequoia Capital, Globespan Capital Partners, Harbinger Venture Management, Cisco Systems Inc. and Ram Shiram, offers technology that helps users more easily share contact information and media such as photos or personal Web site information.

Founded in 2001, Plaxo was an early social networking service that allowed people to keep track of their friends’ contact information. However, the service was criticized for sending spam to its customers and their friends and was passed up in popularity by others like Facebook Inc.

The company decided to make a “big strategic shift” about 12 months ago. Later last year it launched Plaxo Pulse, a service similar to Facebook’s News Feed that informs people of all their friends’ activities on other social media sites. Also, Plaxo recently joined the DataPortability WorkGroup, an industry group that helps clear the way for users to more easily access information from across a range of Web sites where they store their information.

The two companies have been working together in a partnership for about a year, and Plaxo currently hosts all the accounts for Comcast Web mail service. Comcast hopes to use Plaxo to offer new services to its 26 million subscribers.

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