It has been a little more than two months since I joined the talented team at Plaxo as their new CEO. Not surprisingly, it�s been something of a whirlwind. I feel as if I�m already at least two years behind on my e-mail.

Before I started the job, my wife gave me a book written specifically for new CEOs. I forget the exact title (the book itself is now in the seat pocket of an airplane somewhere over the Midwest), but it was something like, �How to Avoid Screwing Up in Your First 90 Days.� One of the book�s primary recommendations was to spend as much of the first few months as possible listening. In particular, the authors recommended that new leaders exploit the temporary luxury of uncluttered calendars and unbiased ears to speak with as many customers, employees, fans, and critics as possible.

I have tried to take that lesson to heart. Here�s what I�ve learned after two months of listening:

• Plaxo�s members are an incredibly diverse group. They represent over 85 countries, and they span the gamut from college students to senior citizens.


• While we have a heavy concentration of subscribers in �client-centric� positions (e.g. sales executives, small business people, financial planners, and real estate agents), we�ve also attracted loyal followings among brides-to-be, administrative assistants, ministers, and large numbers of non-profit organizations. Our members have�not surprisingly�quite different requirements for the service.


• People who have been using Plaxo for a month or more tend to be happy with the product. Our mean customers satisfaction ratings are above 4.2�out of a maximum score of 5.0�on all major criteria.


• However, we have a long way to go to make the initial experience better for our users. In particular, we need to do a better job of explaining the service to first time users.


• Die-hard Mac users want a Mac version. Die-hard Mozilla fans want a Thunderbird Version. (We�re working on it�more in a subsequent posting.)


• About 40% of Plaxo subscribers leverage the service to access their address books and calendars from multiple different e-mail accounts, and now want to use Plaxo to access their address books and calendars on their mobile phones.


• We haven�t done a particularly good job of letting our subscribers know about some of our newer features (e.g. calendar synchronization, Plaxo signatures, "Click-to-Connect," etc.) Over 25% of our subscribers were unaware that these capabilities existed.


• Our birthday reminder service has been extremely useful in promoting domestic tranquility. Every day, we get a number of e-mails from people who say that we have �helped them stay out of hot water� by reminding them of a colleague, friend, significant other, mother-in-law, etc. who was about to have a birthday.


• An increasing number of people who are not Plaxo members are frustrated by the volume of Update Requests that they are receiving from Plaxo members. Rightly or wrongly, they perceive these requests as spam or�at best�an unwanted intrusion. We need to do a better job in enhancing their experience.


• In relation to the point above, we need to establish �Plaxo Manners.� Some of our members have gotten especially enthusiastic about using our product�to the point that they will send update requests to everyone for whom they have an e-mail address, including people that they met three years ago at a conference and haven�t spoken to since. We need to do a better job of encouraging our subscribers to be thoughtful about their update requests.


• In relation to the point above, there are certain categories of people (celebrities, well-known journalists) who already feel too connected, and are not looking to let even more people connect to them. For those people, we offer the ability to block Plaxo requests, but could probably do more. While I know that we could keep Paris Hilton�s address book secure, she might nevertheless find herself receiving lots of requests from people who want to be in her address book and/or felt offended that they didn�t rate as high as Ashlee Simpson or Eminem.

Beyond the practical applications of Plaxo, it appears to serve some very basic social needs as well. One subscriber wrote that Plaxo �helped fulfill a New Year�s Resolution to stay organized and do a better job of staying in touch with the people [they] cared about.� We�re thrilled about this. On the other hand, this same person wanted us to come up with a solution to help with their other New Year�s Resolution�to lose 5 pounds. We�re not quite sure how to help with that.

In short, we�ve made some great progress. However, we still have a lot of work to do. Whether you are a satisfied customer, a skeptical non-user, or something in between�I�d love to hear from you and get your suggestions.

The final two things that I�ve learned in the past two months:

• I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the three people who ran the company before I got here (Rikk Carey, Todd Masonis, and Cameron Ring). They�and the whole team�got the foundations of the company right.


• It takes far fewer than 90 days for a new CEO to mess up.

Ben Golub
CEO
Plaxo, Inc.

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Today was a big day for us at Plaxo -- we released a few new premium services: 1) Plaxo Address Book Optimizer, 2) Plaxo Mobile Access, and 3) Plaxo Premium Suite. These services will complement our existing free service. See our press release for details.

Plaxo Address Book Optimizer eliminates duplicate contacts from your address book. It's very easy to use and will quickly clean up your address book.

Plaxo Mobile Access lets you access your address book and calendar from most mobile phones. There's no limit to the size of your address book and calendar and you don't need to sync.

Plaxo Premium Suite offers BOTH new services, PLUS our existing VIP Support for a discounted price.

Go to the Plaxo home page to get details on each service.

btw: If you are an existing Plaxo user, you will see some new icons in Plaxo Online that enable you to access these new features from the toolbox:

Expect to see lots of great, new things from Plaxo this year!

Rikk Carey
EVP Engineering & Operations

Here at Plaxo, we think it�s crucial that we connect to each other and with the outside world. One of the ways we connect internally is by having lunch brought into the office twice a week. By avoiding the typical lunch time scatter, everyone can sit down, have a meal together and talk about what�s going on in their lives. Once in a while, we even talk shop; we�ve found that oftentimes, switching up the environment and context lends itself to great �out of the box� ideas.

Join us for lunch through these pictures from one of our lunch hours :)

From the desk of the Privacy Officer....

With over 5M Plaxo members, we�ve seen tremendous growth and acceptance of Plaxo over the past few years. But we also acknowledge there are administrators who do not feel Plaxo is appropriate for their userbase and some have taken steps to block messages sent by Plaxo members through our service. We respect an organization�s right to determine what is most appropriate for their users.

We�d like to inform these administrators, effective 03/16/05, Plaxo has changed it�s network service provider to Internap to handle all outbound mail messages sent by Plaxo members through our service.

Internap Network Services Corporation (AMEX: IIP), provides high-performance connectivity to more than 1,800 customers worldwide including Nasdaq, Travelocity.com, and TicketMaster. We�ve actually been using Internap for some time now to provide network connectivity for the Plaxo web-site and Plaxo Online (my.plaxo.com), but with this move Internap will now be providing network connectivity for the entire Plaxo service.

All outbound mail traffic now comes from the new IP addresses of: 66.151.128.12 (mx.plaxo.com) and 66.151.150.148 (mx01.plaxo.com). If you are a network administrator, and have determined that the use of Plaxo is inappropriate within your organization, you may need to update your block list with the addresses above. However, before you do so, we would certainly welcome the opportunity to speak with you and address any concerns that you might have.

People might be wondering why we might blog something like this. Our business is based upon trust, and we feel operating in an open and transparent fashion is the best way to earn and maintain that trust.

Open communications is another way we look to build trust and we'd like to invite you to share your thoughts and comments with us. Does your domain block Plaxo Update Requests or do you know of another domain that does? How do you feel Plaxo can improve? Voice your comments to our public User Forum or feel free to contact me directly.

'til next time.

Stacy Martin
Plaxo Privacy Officer
privacy @t plaxo.com

Mark Jen here. I�ve just joined the Plaxo team and one of the first things I�m getting involved in is our blog. I�m super excited about the products we�re building here; keeping my contacts up to date has always been a daunting task. Now, Plaxo makes it almost effortless!

Hopefully, through this blog, we can continue to give you a transparent view of how we operate. Plaxo definitely recognizes the importance of connecting with the community � we want to hear your feedback and provide you with the best services possible. If you�d like to give me feedback directly about our products or this blog, feel free to e-mail me at mark @t plaxo.com.