Comments on: Plaxo: Start Looking for Alternatives

By: BC

BC — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 13:06:26 +0000

I've been using DavMail (free! Google it. Should take you to sourceforge).
It lets you use webdav with your client (e.g. Thunderbird).
It's not a 100% in the cloud solution since it is an application that runs in the background.
However, it'll let you get your calendar and LDAP contacts.

I'm still looking for a 100% in the cloud solution.
I was hoping I could use Plaxo to take my Microsoft Exchange calendar and spit it out to Google Calendar for a nice 2-way editing capability. Oh well, dreams are crushed.

Being able to 2-way edit within Thunderbird is good enough even though all calendars are not consolidated. Adding the Google Calendars to Thunderbird gives the illusion of that happening, though.

By: Maskil

Maskil — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:59:39 +0000

Thanks Martin. Although I'm not currently using Soocial, I was quite impressed with what they're offering (according to reviews I've read and the tour and other information on their website). It's just a pity they don't offer a one-stop solution for both calendar and contacts.

By: MartinS

MartinS — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:19:00 +0000

I have used soocial (www.soocial.com) to sync my contacts and Google caleneder sync to sync calender

By: Maskil

Maskil — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 05:59:39 +0000

Thanks Martin. Although I'm not currently using Soocial, I was quite impressed with what they're offering (according to reviews I've read and the tour and other information on their website. It's just a pity they don't offer a one-stop solution for both calendar and contacts.

By: MartinS

MartinS — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 05:19:00 +0000

I have used soocial (www.soocial.com) to sync my contacts and Google caleneder sync to sync calender

By: Maskil

Maskil — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 08:33:12 +0000

Thanks for the feedback; good point. Plaxo – like any other business, real-world or online – has the right and the duty to make a profit for its owners/shareholders. Plaxo needs to remember, however, that it’s delivering a non-essential service, and should price accordingly. To my mind, Plaxo (and all the other useful but not essential cloud services out there) should price in such a way that the customer doesn’t need to think twice about it. At $10-20 most of us would probably reach for the plastic without a second thought. At $50-60, we’ll be asking some hard questions about what value the service adds.

By: ppmartin

ppmartin — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 14:39:12 +0000

I think that while the convenience of Plaxo Sync justifies to pay a premium, $60 per annum is indeed a little steep, particularly when I have to pay three times that amount (for three users), as there is no “family discount”.

By: Maskil

Maskil — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:22:41 +0000

Thanks for the positive feedback, Chris. Please stop by again and let us know once you’ve decided on an alternative. I’d like to update the post if it’s something that’s not already on the list; I’m sure others could benefit from your experience.

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:24:25 +0000

Great post, I am in search of a solution as well. I had not used plaxo for some time and when I finally got Outlook I wanted to sync my contacts and low and behold they are try to charge me to do it! Forget Plaxo, there must be something better out there!

By: Maskil

Maskil — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 23:55:16 +0000

Thanks for summing up, Roberto, and for the suggestion regarding myFUNAMBOL. No one product will work for everyone, but the more choices we can highlight, the easier it will be for other users to find a Plaxo alternative that suits their needs.
(Just as a matter of interest, although technology is not my main focus, this post is by far my most clicked-on piece.)

By: roberto.martins@gmail.com

roberto.martins@gmail.com — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 08:18:12 +0000

I had been using Plaxo since the beta days and it was the most useful tool I had for a long time. Everyone above is right. Let’s summarize:
* it is a rip off to pay $60 a year (or $48 with their “generous” discount…) for something that used to be free
* no one needs another subscription to take care of
* 90% of your contacts are not going to pay, so you lose the major benefit: having them updated at all times
* I am using Funambol as a free option. It’s got a funny name, but hey, it is part of the free source movement so it’s gonna be free for a long time… http://my.funambol.com/c/portal/layout?p_l_id=PUB.1001.1
* It also syncs your mobile phone, including iPhone, BBerry, Android and Windows Mobile. Pay attention to any data costs that your carrier might have for that service if you don’t have a data plan
* It syncs Contacts, Calendar but not Tasks.

Of course it is not a substitute for the former Plaxo service. And I thought that one day Microsoft would buy Plaxo and embed it into Outlook… can you imagine the possibilities of that?? ALL your contacts would be Plaxo users (well, almost all)…

By: Maskil

Maskil — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 20:48:33 +0000

Thanks Arnoud. All suggestions are welcome. This may just be the solution for some:

Yahoo! Autosync synchronizes the information you store with Yahoo!—in Address Book, Calendar, ToDo List, and Notepad—with your desktop personal information manager (PIM), such as Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, or Palm Desktop. It’s an upgrade to what used to be known as Intellisync for Yahoo!

By: Arnoud

Arnoud — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 20:02:14 +0000

How about Yahoo! Autosync?
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/addressbook/auto...

By: Maskil

Maskil — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 16:16:39 +0000

Thanks for the heads-up Paulie. This one is new to me, but it looks like a promising solution, at least to the Contacts part of the equation. Synchronising the Calendar will require a different solution.

By: Paulie

Paulie — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 12:19:09 +0000

Have you checked out www.unyk.com?

By: Maskil

Maskil — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 07:17:41 +0000

Thanks for your contribution, Dave. There’s been a great deal of interest in this topic, so any additional alternatives are welcome.

By: Dave B

Dave B — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 20:51:35 +0000

I've been looking for the same solution myself. So far the most promising product I've found is http://www.easy2sync.com/en/produkte/index.php I haven't actually used it yet but there is a freeware edition which I'm hoping will do everything that I want it to do.

By: Maskil

Maskil — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:24:28 +0000

Great, thanks Michael, I’ll check out your list.

By: Michael Wexler

Michael Wexler — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:24:38 +0000

I have the same concerns, and I've collected a list of potential replacements on my blog. Please check http://www.nettakeaway.com/tp/article/438/plaxo-n... I actually didn't include the MS Office connector, so I'll add it.