And now, they're bringing those address books to life with "Pulse," a new way to enrich your connection with the people in your life. Pulse is a bit like some social networks you've heard of, but it's different in several key ways…

First, Pulse is not a place to see how many online "friends" you can collect. It’s meant to be a better way for you to stay in touch with the people you actually know and care about – your family, your real-world friends, and the people you know from business. Pulse makes it easy for you to see what they’re creating and sharing online – their blogs, the photos they’re uploading, their restaurant reviews, and so much more.

Second, Pulse is not a "walled garden." It’s a dashboard for seeing what the people you know are creating and sharing all over the open web. You can hook your Pulse account up to all the places where you create or share stuff (your blog, Flickr, Twitter, Yelp, and more than 30 other sites).

But "open" does not mean "public." With Plaxo, you have fine-grained control over what you share with whom, whether that’s your contact info – or your photos from last weekend. 

They are dedicated to the notion that your address book, your friends list, and your content belong to you, not to us. They make it easy for you to take them with you wherever you go and to use them with an ever-expanding array of sites, applications, and devices.