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Plaxo launched in 2002 with the goal of making it easy for people to keep their contact information up-to-date. Your data is available from anywhere, any time  -- as it's stored on the Web. It can be synced with Outlook, and your contacts can update their own records.

For any marketer who manages a company's contact database, Plaxo sounded extremely valuable. Co-founder and then president Sean Parker's launch statement surely resonated with me:

"Plaxo Contacts was born out of my own frustration of out-of-date and incomplete contact information and the fact that nearly everyone suffers from this frustration. An incomplete or out-of-date address book means lost productivity, lost business opportunities and lost friends. Plaxo makes it fast and easy to update your contacts."

The Plaxo Network grew to 15 million in 2006. Today's it's a business unit of Comcast Interactive Media and focused on creating a better social media tool than Facebook, LinkedIn and others.

With its broader focus, Plaxo's original mission will be left in the dust and us marketers will continue to struggle to maintain a clean and accurate database of prospects and customers. I had hoped that Plaxo would become the ultimate social media application for B2B marketers, making "address unknown" emails a thing of the past. Instead, I receive emails from Plaxo of upcoming birthdays for people I hardly talk to.

The problem Plaxo set out to address seven years ago still exists...will somebody build the ultimate social media marketing solution? If it's out there already, please let me know.

Design for Mother's Day eCard landing page. The concept was to offer information to users of Plaxo's eCard site about the symbolic meanings of flowers: a yellow rose is for friendship, remember me, or welcome back. At the site you can order flowers from Plaxo's flower partner.

One of my favorite eCard designs for Plaxo eCards.