Comcast’s Plaxo Buy Adds Interactivity

Comcast Corp. has announced plans to acquire Plaxo, a move that will help power the cable giant’s SmartZone site.

Adding Plaxo will give Comcast’s triple-play subscribers a central location from which to send and receive e-mails and instant messages, and check voice mail online.

The value and terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Buying Plaxo, which already worked with Comcast as a close partner, marks an important step beyond ratcheting up Internet speeds and adding HD content. Comcast now can focus on interactive communications capabilities for its triple-play customers.

While some have called Plaxo a social networking site, it’s more accurately described as a “networked address book.” Nonetheless, Plaxo contributes another layer of functionality, well beyond more content and faster Internet services, for Comcast to add to its multi-service bundles. Comcast sells its triple-play services to residences and businesses.

“By being part of the SmartZone unified communications center, for example, we can make it easier for people to communicate with friends, families, and customers, whether they are at home using the array of Comcast communications services ... or at work using Outlook, on the road, at an Internet café, on their mobile, etc.,” explained Plaxo CEO Ben Golub.

Golub said that by integrating a smart address book into its services, Comcast will make its services more interesting and valuable to subscribers. The strategy also “will serve as a model for many other service providers in making triple-play services truly integrated,” said Golub. “Done right, the smart, networked address book and calendar should be able to form the foundation for vastly improved communications, content, and community functions.”

Golub said his company announced a few similar partnerships in the past, including AOL and Openwave, and are starting to work with a wide variety of other service providers, social networks and device manufacturers.

“I think the industry is waking up to the power of smart, networked address books.”

The Plaxo acquisition is part of a large and accelerating trend where big cablecos build more than one network by acquiring content companies, sports networks and assets for Web destinations. Cablevision Systems Corp. last week paid nearly $500 million for the Sundance Channel, for example. And Comcast has combined a slew of assets, including Fandango, to build and launch Fancast.com, its entertainment destination.

Telcos largely have focused on network deployment and customer acquisition for TV-driven bundles, steering well clear of buying from cable’s shopping list.

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