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Regardless of your political point of view shouldn't the Internet remain free from regulation?

Is that a rhetorical question? Because the internet ISN"T and WON'T remain free of regulation. In fact I can't really conceive of how you would have any sort of social activity on that scale without some form of regulation. The only actual question is what the regulations are going to be? I suggest they be regulations that favor end users and entrepreneurial activity rather than supporting large monopolistic networks. Since we are so fond of car analogies here, doing away with net neutrality is similar to having every road be a toll road. It can work in theory but it generates far less economic benefit to society as a whole.

Unregulated markets have a strong tendency to behave in ways that aren't in the interests of consumers. (see our current financial crisis if you need a timely example) The economics of delivery of internet service are very very similar to that for telephone service. Economies of scale matter greatly and there is a strong tendency towards natural monopoly as a result. Once an ISP has control over delivery, they effectively have a monopoly and can charge monopolistic prices. (this is already true in some cases) They also can stop competition completely if unregulated. Comcast for example owns a social networking site. It would be trivial for them to block or charge high prices to Facebook which competes with them. Without network neutrality I'm quite confident the internet as we know it would never have happened and certainly would be a far less dynamic and interesting place.

From Steven Rhue's Plaxo profile, he graduated from Wahoo High school in Bumf**K..er Wahoo, NE in 2002, so he is only about 26. His Plaxo profile also has links to both Chet Uber's and Susan Van der Gaast's Plaxo profiles.
His Linkedin profile shows him living in Lincoln, NE, which fits with other things I read. It also shows him owning/related to T.G.B.S Construction, which I haven't found anything on.

I use Plaxo, Weave and Dropbox to do the same things.

Disclaimer - I work for this place, so this probably sounds like a marketing pitch.

Plaxo Pulse is just about what you're looking for. We don't have vampires or zombies, and we're not about friend-whoring.

<marketing hooey>
"It's meant to be a better way for you to stay in touch with the people you actually know and care about - your family, your real-world friends, and the people you know from business. Pulse makes it easy for you to see what they're creating and sharing online - their blogs, the photos they're uploading, their restaurant reviews, and so much more."
</marketing hooey>

And the most important part: We are dedicated to the notion that your address book, your friends list, and your content belong to you, not to us."

We're not a walled garden, so you can take your stuff with you when you want to (we sync and export, and publish RSS). We also let you use what you already use (blog, Flickr, Yelp, whatever), and just collect it together to share with whoever you like. You can also choose who you want to share with, so your friends won't see the karaoke pictures from your family reunion, and your parents won't see the pictures you take of your friends.

Disclaimer - I work for this place, so this probably sounds like a marketing pitch.

Plaxo Pulse is just about what you're looking for. We don't have vampires or zombies, and we're not about friend-whoring.

<marketing hooey>
"It's meant to be a better way for you to stay in touch with the people you actually know and care about - your family, your real-world friends, and the people you know from business. Pulse makes it easy for you to see what they're creating and sharing online - their blogs, the photos they're uploading, their restaurant reviews, and so much more."
</marketing hooey>

And the most important part: We are dedicated to the notion that your address book, your friends list, and your content belong to you, not to us."

We're not a walled garden, so you can take your stuff with you when you want to (we sync and export, and publish RSS). We also let you use what you already use (blog, Flickr, Yelp, whatever), and just collect it together to share with whoever you like. You can also choose who you want to share with, so your friends won't see the karaoke pictures from your family reunion, and your parents won't see the pictures you take of your friends.

http://www.plaxo.com/api/openid_recipe

As someone that used to work for a company that developed strong authentication systems, I can tell you that big-business has been having some kind of orgasm about this for quite a while now.

The typical big-dreamer sees "identity" as a problem of too many logins/passwords. Yahoo and IBM have different customers, but similar goals simplifying authentication/identity for their customers. As usual, Microsoft is conspicuously absent because they think they've got the proprietary solution already.

http://www.plaxo.com/ lets me sync gmail contacts to my iPhone - via Apple Address Book and iSync. As a bonus, it also syncs my google calandar too. the only drawback is that i have to trust yet another web company with my information.

Now the only feature I really want is a way for it to integrate the contacts and calendar with my addressbook and iCal.

Number of connections - Over a billion connections**
** People who have not installed Plaxo or joined Plaxo Online, but are connected to Plaxo members.

Completely offtopic, but in our new "Web 2.0" world, this is a couple of billion customers. Witness Plaxo: http://www.plaxo.com/about and this gem:

Number of connections - Over a billion connections**
** People who have not installed Plaxo or joined Plaxo Online, but are connected to Plaxo members.

If you think about it, Plaxo is the perfect "built to be acquired" company. Read their "privacy policy" here:

"In the event Plaxo goes through a business transition, such as a merger, acquisition or the sale of a portion of its assets, Your Information and your membership in the Plaxo Contact Networks(TM) will, in most instances, be part of the assets transferred. You will be notified of an ownership change pursuant to Notification of Changes section of the privacy statement."

See that? They consider your information to be an asset. So, I wonder how long they're going to farm data before selling themselves to doubleclick? Imagine how valuable that data will be. Your surfing habits, matched with your personal information, matched with the personal information and surfing habits of all your 1st-degree friends, and all your friends' friends...

(Also notice that Plaxo (purposely) makes its full privacy policy difficult to link. It's a javascript popup)