We soft-launched a “status” feature in Pulse about a week ago, and it’s already proving to be very popular. But for people using lots of different services, having yet another place to type in what they’re up to is hardly a convenience.

Indeed, if you’ve been following the Plaxo story closely, you know that we’re not trying to build “yet another social network”. Instead, we’re on a mission to help bring about an open version of the Social Web, one defined by interoperability between sites, with you in control of your data and content and how it moves between services.

So, in line with that vision, we’re enhancing the Pulse status feature with the ability to synchronize it with other services, starting today with Twitter. And what’s really cool is that you have a choice of one-way or two-way sync. What does that mean?

If you set up status sync to Twitter, when you update your status in Pulse, it will be instantly updated in Twitter. (And, as you’re typing, you’ll see a character countdown from 140 and the ability to shrink links via tinyurl.)

(In addition, if you’ve already installed the Twitter app on Facebook, that status message you originated in Pulse will update your status inside Facebook!)

And, if you also choose to sync from Twitter to Pulse? When you’re in Twitter – okay, admit it, that may be most of your waking hours – your tweets will automatically update your status in Pulse. (And don’t worry, we do some smart “echo cancellation,” so you’ll only see one copy of your status update in each place.) At release time, such updates in Pulse are not instantaneous, but they will be soon.

If you haven't hooked up your Twitter to you Pulse, start by adding the feed. You'll be prompted with how to also set up sync status. If you're already feeding your tweets into Pulse, just go edit your Profile Settings.

We think this is both a really useful feature and a great demonstration of things to come when social sites interoperate. You could also imagine that future versions of the status feature might sync with other services, such as Jaiku. Let me know which ones you’d most like to see. Just send a tweet to johnmccrea!

If you're anything like us, you can't stop checking your Pulse. If you're anything like some of us (the cool ones), you also have an iPhone. That's why us cool people got together to make a special iPhone version of Pulse. Everything is custom made for that little iPhone screen, allowing those of us with sausage fingers to easily see photos, messages, and web-wide updates (from over 30 sites) from the people you know.

This is just the latest way we're helping you get your data where you need it. We recently rolled out integration with the Mac address book and Microsoft Outlook. To access Pulse on your iPhone, just point your browser to http://pulse.plaxo.com and sign in. You'll be redirected automatically (but you can still access the original web version, of course).

All feedback is appreciated. If you don't have a Plaxo account yet, go ahead and signup.

Pete Curley
Senior product manager

PS. Did you know that if you sync your Outlook or Mac with your iPhone through iTunes, your Plaxo contacts and calendar will be in there too? Pretty neat.

Update: Here's a quick video, too...

Today marks a tremendously important milestone for believers of an Open Web. Yahoo! has announced it will provide OpenIDs for its nearly 250 Million users, meaning they will all be able to carry their digital identity with them in a secure way and use it to interact richly and securely with sites across the web. In parallel, Plaxo has also just released full support for consuming OpenID 2.0, which means among other things that all those Yahoo! users will be able to join Plaxo and use it to synchronize their data without having to create and manage yet-another-login-and-password. And of course so will the users of any other site that supports OpenID. That’s the great thing about open standards—the more people use them, the better they get.

Having a company as big and important as Yahoo! embrace a grass-roots, open-web standard like OpenID is a major accomplishment and validation. OpenID is now officially a mainstream technology, and the proof is that millions of users will now be able to take advantage of it, without ever knowing what OpenID is, how it works, or that they’re even using it. That’s because OpenID 2.0 (which was finalized late last year) includes a number of security and usability enhancements that will make it “just work” for mainstream users. In addition to the current “sign in with your OpenID” functionality on Plaxo, you will soon see a simple button that says “Sign in with your Yahoo! ID”. When you click this button, you’ll be taken to Yahoo!, where you sign in as you normally do, and you’ll be asked if you trust Plaxo to know who you are. Once you consent, you’ll be taken back to Plaxo, and presto! We create an account for you that’s tied to your Yahoo! account via OpenID. When you want to log into Plaxo, you log in via Yahoo, and Plaxo knows who you are and that you’re logged in, thanks to some cryptographic magic on the backend that you never have to worry about. All you know is “I use Yahoo, and now I can use it with Plaxo too.” That’s what it feels like when open social web technology really works.

And that’s just the start. The reason people are excited about OpenID—and the reason Yahoo! has chosen to embrace it—goes far beyond the convenience of single sign-on. The real power of OpenID is that it’s a key building block for giving users a durable and meaningful digital identity that they can use across the entire web. In an OpenID world, the services you use will really know who you are (because you can prove it with OpenID), and they’ll be able to talk to each other in a rich and secure manner (because you are now the same person to both sites). So, you’ll be able to consolidate your online identity (to the extent you want to, of course) and present a unified view of who you really are. And your friends will do the same. So when we talk about an “open social web” where you can stay in touch with the people you care about even though you’re all using different tools and services, this is what we mean. And this is how it’s going to happen. And today it just got real. If you can’t tell, we’re pretty excited.

=joseph.smarr, chief platform architect

Just in time for MacWorld, we’re excited to rollout a new version of our Mac client, which brings Pulse to the Mac Address Book! This follows our recent rollout of our integration between Pulse and Microsoft Outlook.

Why do we keep adding integrations points for Pulse into other tools and services?

Because with Pulse, we’re focused on building a really useful social application that helps people stay connected, share stuff, and communicate with their family, friends, and business network. And since most of our members are busy professionals, it’s not enough to enable communication just within the Pulse website; we need to bring Pulse – and the unified address book underlying it – to the communication tools, services, and devices that they use.

The latest version of Plaxo for Mac is a little piece of software you download that does a whole lot of stuff. As always, it acts as a bridge between the Mac’s sync services and your Plaxo account, performing address book and calendar sync as an automated background process. And through the magic of Plaxo’s multi-way sync capability, you then have a single “smart address book” you can use across the disparate worlds of Mac, Outlook, the web, and more.

In addition, there’s some nicely integrated UI that we add to your Mac Address Book, a special details view for each contact. And it’s that UI that we’ve brought to life with Pulse:

This Pulse-enhanced details view makes it really easy to:

- See what the person is sharing on a large and growing list of sites, including blogs, Digg, Twitter, del.icio.us, Flickr, Yelp, and dozens of others
- See other content that they’re sharing just in Pulse
- Click over to see they’re profile and full content stream

(Of course, you only see what that person wants you to see, based on Pulse’s explicit connection and sharing model.)

Plaxo for Mac also mashes up with Mac Mail, adding Click to Connect UI that give you one-click access to maps, directions, and VOIP calls.

If you’re already using Pulse, download the new Mac client here:
http://www.plaxo.com/downloads/mac

If you're not yet a member, get your account set up first.
http://www.plaxo.com/signup

We’re big believers in turbo-charging apps by connecting them to the “social graph,” so expect more down this pathway in the near future.

John McCrea
VP of Marketing