The cool story then, though, was a bulletin board format that The Source and others were using called Participate. A company in the Northeast was targeting the finance sector at $48/hour connect time, and our role was to write content that engaged people enough to keep them online. The things that worked were the things that still work: astrology, debate (I remember running a section called “Argue With Me” where I simply took the counter of whatever was proposed) and personal issues.

To keep in the holiday spirit, though, the feature that worked like gangbusters for no time investment?

“Letters to Santa Claus”

Yep, traders online at 80 cents a minute typing out which Benz they wanted with that year’s bonus.

Naturally Santa answered with an open-ended question.

It was good fun, and if they enjoyed it, I certainly enjoyed when people would would want to argue about Reaganomics while their boss paid $8 for them to post a reply.

I disagree about Twitter, mainly because of the asynchronous aspect. I tweet, you can follow (or not); you won’t be nagged or otherwise bothered. Plaxo, on the other hand, tries to be synchronous. Now, maybe that’s a selling point (we’ll keep your contact info synced), but it’s a net loss for me in my situation, as most of my contacts don’t want the big brother trait of Plaxo.

And, as a side note, my foray was about 7 weeks ago.

I also tried DUB (sort of an electronic business card), but the same problem is there, too. I’d like an easy service which allows me to hand out my contact information electronically while respecting everyone’s privacy and without expecting anything in return. Any suggestions?

It’s very much like AOL & Time Warner was supposed to be, but there’s been constant evolution since then online and in the way people interact online. If Plaxo ends up being the backbone of a Comcast social media strategy, the site will change. It’s the main social site for an organization with a $50 billion market cap.

What it evolves into rather than what it has been before it was sold this year is what makes the story interesting.