Philadelphia - Comcast (NASD: CMCSA), the nation's largest cable TV service and a leading provider of broadband access, has signed a deal to acquire social networking service Plaxo, according to a post on the Plaxo blog. While financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, TechCrunch reports that the purchase price was around $175 million.

Founded in 2001, Mountain View, Calif.-based Plaxo offers an online address book service that can automatically update contact information, and last August debuted a more traditional social networking service called Plaxo Pulse.

The company will remain an independent operation within Comcast Interactive Media, and begin to integrate its services on Comcast.net, entertainment sites Fancast and Fandango, as well as through the television.

Plaxo and Comcast have already been working as partners for over a year, and the company said the relationship has helped grow its user base to nearly 50 million.

"Together, we intend to deliver on a vision of making 'social media' a natural part of the lives of regular people, not just early-adopters," Plaxo says on its blog.

Related Links:
http://blog.plaxo.com/archives/2008/05/post.html

http://snipurl.com/28vxr (TechCrunch)

http://www.comcast.com