Plaxo is not Unyk

UnykLogo2008In my last post I quoted Shelly Palmer as saying “So the Internet allows you to create value quickly, but direct translation into wealth is astoundingly elusive to most people.”

This reminded me of an email I received last week from Plaxo. I have been using Plaxo for over two years to provide among other things a free back up of my Outlook contacts. Since I have been using LinkedIn I have not used it to build my network as I had but all the same a very useful free tool.

But now Plaxo plan to charge for the features I use most. They have offered a free month trial of this version which also includes other interesting features. But before I could sign on for the trail I received an invite to join UNYK a free service (can’t be that new – more than 15 million users and 784, 867, 362 contacts managed) that provides all the features that Plaxo offered plus the ability to sync with my mobile … and much more.

As such I have installed UNYK and ignored the offer from Plaxo. I guess that tells me two things – I am a typical Net user … I expect everything for nothing … and the moment one company has a model in place to make money someone comes along and offers what they have invested money and time in for nothing.

So yes it is astoundingly difficult to make money developing tools and services for the online market (like me!!) … but harnessing those tools to build a Tribe of support is where the profits are to be found.

Once I have used UNYK for a while I will provide my views but in the meantime give it a go … it looks good!!

~ by enovapr2 on July 10, 2009.

Posted in Grumpy Old Manager, Marketing Communications, PR 2.0
Tags: , , ,

6 Responses to “Plaxo is not Unyk”

  1. Do you like UNYK? I’m bummed about Plaxo and have been using it for years with Outlook (even though I use Thunderbird instead). It’s an easy way to sync with my iPhone and keep all contacts updated. I would love to hear your thoughts on UNYK. Thanks.

    Dan said this on July 11, 2009 at 3:54 am

  2. Hi,

    My name is Adrien and I’m an analyst for UNYK.

    Your post is interesting. As you say, the 2.0 users do not expect to pay for an online service. The business model is now more oriented towards the collaboration with the surfer to answer to the niche’s needs. For do that, the core product has to remain free.

    UNYK continues to evolve; the core of our product is the synchronization of all the contacts with various existing platforms. Our product allows you to have the same address book up to date everywhere. In 2 weeks, after synchronizing with the mobile, you will be able to sync UNYK in both ways with Outlook.

    Regards,

    Adrien

    unyk said this on July 11, 2009 at 5:50 am

  3. Nice post. Thanks for this post. Very interesting article.

    Pr Manchester said this on July 26, 2009 at 11:02 pm

  4. What about calendar synchronization? This to me is a valuable component of Plaxo. I too have dropped Plaxo and just signed on with UNYK…though I haven’t synchronized yet and don’t know if it will also do the calendar. If not any ideas for synching outlook calendars between a couple of computers?

    Pam said this on August 4, 2009 at 8:36 pm

  5. I have progressed much with UNYK yet … but will soon. As such I don’t know the answer to your question re Calendar Synching. Perhaps you should Adrien from UNYK who commented a little while ago (see above) I am sure he will be able to help you.
    Will let you know how I progress soon.

    Rick

    enovapr2 said this on August 5, 2009 at 10:50 pm

  6. I look forward to utilising the features of UNYK as it looks good. Having a few problems at the moment getting the synching with my phone to work ,,,, it keeps dropping out part way through the initial synch.

    Also seems limited with 500 contacts as I have over 2000 in Outlook.

    Thanks for the post.

    enovapr2 said this on July 11, 2009 at 7:34 am

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