| Alicia Mickelsen Breakaway Communications 212-616-6002 |
or | Pamela Preston Breakaway Communications 212-616-6001 |
July 6, 2005 (DULLES, VA and MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA) — America Online, Inc., the world’s leading interactive services company, today announced that it is working with Plaxo, Inc., the industry leader in Web-based contact management, to help AOL® members and AIM® users keep their e-mail address books and Buddy List® features up-to-date, and make it easy to access AOL® services from other e-mail programs.
Under the agreement, AOL will integrate Plaxo™ services to enable AOL members and AIM users to easily import, export and synchronize contact information in their Microsoft® Outlook®, Outlook Express® and third party Web-based e-mail address books with their AOL Mail and AIM Mail Address Books. This will also enable AIM users to automatically pull contact information from third party address books to pre-populate, or build upon, their Buddy List features.
In addition, the agreement will enable AOL members, AIM users and Plaxo members to detect AIM presence information from within Plaxo and Plaxo-enabled platforms, such as Outlook and Outlook Express. A new AOL/AIM Screen Name field will be added to both Plaxo and Outlook ‘v-cards’ and the familiar AOL® Running Man icon will appear in contact lists and e-mail headers to let users know when AIM® buddies are online and available to chat.
The net result for all will be a universal and up-to-date address book that can be used at home, at work, and on the road, and which provides the accurate contact and presence information necessary for all digital communications. This will enable the more than one million AIM users who have already adopted the new free AIM Mail service to easily import contact information from other e-mail applications to quickly bring their AIM Mail Address Book up-to-date.
“Together with Plaxo, we are making it easy for our members and users to create, update and maintain their e-mail address books and Buddy List features,” said Chamath Palihapitiya, vice president and general manager for AIM and ICQ, America Online, Inc. “Through this agreement, we will also enable Plaxo users to detect AIM presence within the Plaxo service and Outlook, giving them instant access to their friends, family and colleagues.”
Finally, Plaxo will integrate access to the AIM service into its software and AIM users will be given the opportunity to install the Plaxo plug-in for Outlook or Outlook Express while downloading or upgrading the AIM service. AOL members will be able to adopt Plaxo both within the AOL service and on the AOL.com® portal.
“We are excited to bring the popular AIM service into our offerings,” said Ben Golub, president and CEO of Plaxo. “By combining highly accurate and available contact information with the ability to instantly see who is online and available to chat, we are providing a more integrated communication experience for our millions of customers. We are also extremely pleased to offer AOL members, AIM users and AIM Mail users our contact management services, enabling them to stay connected to friends, family, colleagues and customers.”
The AOL / Plaxo Integration has been customized to let AOL members and AIM users easily consolidate, populate and update their existing address book entries on a case-by-case basis. The custom technology integration will enable AOL members and AIM users to:
The AOL / Plaxo Integration will enable Plaxo subscribers to:
Pricing and Availability
Both AOL and Plaxo will make the integrated features available at no additional charge to their subscribers and registered users. A public beta of the joint technology will be available from America Online, Inc. later this year.
The new AIM Mail client and AIM service will continue to be free, as will the basic Plaxo service.
About America Online, Inc.
America Online, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Time Warner Inc. Based in Dulles, Virginia, America Online is the world's leader in interactive services, Web brands, Internet technologies and e-commerce services.
About Plaxo
Plaxo, Inc. (www.plaxo.com) is an innovative consumer technology company that provides a critical new layer to the Internet infrastructure: consumer services that accurately and seamlessly keep people’s data up-to-date and accessible. Plaxo is a privately held company funded by leading investment and technology firms — Sequoia Capital, Globespan Capital Partners, Harbinger Venture Management and Cisco Systems — as well as individual investors Ram Shriram and Tim Koogle. The company has raised almost $20 million since it was founded in 2001.
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