AOL Teams with Plaxo for Contact Management

New service will allow users to manage their contact information between Outlook, AOL/AIM lists and Plaxo Online.

Need a better way to manage your AOL Buddy List and integrate your Outlook contacts? America Online senses your pain and is partnering with web-based contact management company Plaxo to develop a service which will allow import, export and synchronization of contact information between your AOL lists and a program such as Outlook.

Specifically, according to a press release, the new service, whidh will be available later this year at no additional charge, will allow AOL members and AIM users to:

• Import address books and automatically populate their AOL Mail or AIM Mail Address Books and AIM Buddy List from their Plaxo Contacts which contains contacts from Outlook and Outlook Express and third party Web-based e-mail.
• Automatically exchane updated contact information with friends, colleagues, and customers.
• Determine which elements of their contact information will be public or private, and with whom the various elements will be shared.
• Configure open mail access (IMAP) integration between AOL Mail or AIM Mail and Outlook, Outlook Express. 

In addition, Plaxo subscribers will be able to:

• Add AIM presence information into their Plaxo, Outlook and Outlook Express accounts to see when friends, family, customers and colleagues are online and available to chat.
• Initiate an AOL instant messaging session from their Plaxo, Outlook and Outlook Express address books.
• Access their universal address book from their chosen communication platform (home e-mail, work e-mail, mobile, phone or AIM), to easily connect with friends, family, colleagues and customers.