Plaxo…Apologizes

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1. Colin Scroggins
   

   March 27th, 2006 at 8:49 pm

   I want to give Plaxo a chance, but it will take more than a public apology. Actions speak louder than words.

2. herbert
   

   March 27th, 2006 at 9:38 pm

   hello!

   I didn’t need plaxo to apologize. I heard about this service - tested it and it’s the best think I have ever used. Now I have my adresses everywhere. I can sync with my windows PC at work, my MAC on the road my Linux PC at home using 3 different Mail Clients.

   It’s great and works well and there are some other geat features if the Plaxo Community grows - test it and you will see.

3. Serg
   

   March 27th, 2006 at 9:41 pm

   Bullshit. Spam, get people to signup, then apologize?

   Hah.

4. Matt
   

   March 27th, 2006 at 10:20 pm

   Plaxo is still around?

5. AM77
   

   March 27th, 2006 at 10:57 pm

   I agree with Serg. The only reason they are apologizing now is because they’ve built up their user base and no longer need to keep up their spamming… they said it themselves.

   They could’ve apologized any time ago - they knew what they were doing from the start - but they chose to wait until now because they’ve already achieved their goal and no longer have anything to lose. In fact, it’s almost as if they’re even winning new customers - like you - from this move. Nothing but bullcrap P.R.

6. Minti
   

   March 28th, 2006 at 3:56 am

   Not hard to win your support Mike? From such a strong position one day, then a public apology, and everything changes.

7. Saul Weiner
   

   March 28th, 2006 at 6:31 am

   Still, later is better than never.

8. Andrew
   

   March 28th, 2006 at 7:44 am

   I am all for stringing spammers up by the short and curly’s, and I admit I use and really like Plaxo, it really works. Is there another service that does what it does for free? I heard rumblings that M$ is doing something called Live Contacts.

9. tom
   

   March 28th, 2006 at 9:27 am

   you are such a wimp Mike…don’t fall for it. It’s just another one of their tactics to win simpathy votes…

10. Ben
    

    March 28th, 2006 at 10:09 am

    You have got to be kidding me. So years of now admittedly knowingly spamming is erased by one apology? How many people have gotten off felony charges with the “I’m sorry” defense? In my eyes, if you knew what you were doing was wrong for two years you have absolutely no integrity in my book.

11. Gryphon MacThoy
    

    March 28th, 2006 at 10:36 am

    Who’s the spammer?

    Are you blaming MSN because your-buddy@msn.com sent you their new telephone number?

    *YOUR* friends *TOLD* Plaxo to send *YOU* a message with their contact information. *PLAXO* did not make this choice for *YOUR FRIENDS*.

    There is absolutely no difference between recieving your friend’s information update directly from them and recieving it from Plaxo. That email is sent *BY YOUR FRIENDS* though Plaxo. It’s just an automated e-mail service.

    Imagine this: a plug-in for Outlook that will send your contact info out to everyone in your Outlook Contacts list every time you update your personal contact info. So you don’t have to do it yourself. So it’s automatic. LIKE A COMPUTER IS SUPPOSED TO BE!

    You people are bitching just to bitch. Grow Up.

    PS - I’m a Plaxo user. I used Plaxo to send my updated address, phone number, and work information to a *SELECT LIST* of friends, not everyone. As a good citizen, I also sent a second email to my friends directly from myself telling them that the Plaxo e-mail is from me and that from time-to-time they might get another if I change my phone number, move to a new apartment, get a new e-mail address, or whatever.

    Some friends deleted the email, even though it is from my address. Paranoid, some even called me to tell me that I had a virus on my computer. I straightened them out and taught them the difference between spam and a friend using a service to automate some functions.

12. TrafficGuy
    

    March 28th, 2006 at 11:05 am

    I have been a long time supporter of plaxo. I have had a couple hard drive crashes which could have potentially lost all my contact list for several years. Plaxo has been great from a redundancy standpoint.

13. stuart
    

    March 28th, 2006 at 12:07 pm

    I’ve been a user of Plaxo’s service for many years and have been one of the unlucky ones that both received and (unintentionally) sent out spam. I appreciate the CEO’s apology and I will continue to use the service, and may even start to recommend it again in the future.

14. Jeff
    

    March 28th, 2006 at 1:39 pm

    Ha! I tried going to Plaxo.com to view the public apology, and learned that the URL was blocked by our company’s ISA filter. (I work for a very, very large software company you definitely have heard of). I guess they DO have a way to go to build trust back up…

15. Jonathan Grubb
    

    March 28th, 2006 at 1:59 pm

    An apology without an offer of restitution is hollow. How about this: any user who was spammed by plaxo gets a free year of premium service.

16. BitterReader
    

    March 28th, 2006 at 2:36 pm

    They are working to reduce the number of times they spam me?

    That’s an apology?

    Hey Mike, sorry I harrassed you in earlier posts, I’ll try to do it less often.

    Doesn’t seem like much of an apology to me.

    I actually think the Plaxo CEO is a loser for even trying to do this. The Plaxo service works great for its members, and is just annoying for all of us who are not willing to put our contact information in their system. He’s trying to placate guys on the bully pulpit like Arrington but if they stop enabling this capability, they’ll lose a ton of users (especially the people who use it to build up their cold call databases - enter ane-mail address and it unlocks the Plaxo treasure chest of contact information).

    I agree with some other comments - I’ll wait to see what Plaxo actually does here (I just received another Plaxo contact request in my inbox, gotta run).

17. Dima Rekesh
    

    March 28th, 2006 at 4:04 pm

    Yeah whatever… I am so *moved*! Oh, boy! Plaxo apologized! How exciting! I’ll be a supporter, too! I love Plaxo! I love Plaxo!

18. Dan Tudor
    

    March 28th, 2006 at 4:04 pm

    In 1976, “I’m sorry” would be expected and not rewarded by existing or new customers. It wouldn’t have generated any news.

    In 2006, 30 years later, “I’m sorry” means gaining respect, gaining customers, getting sales leads, and improving your corporate image and getting you talked about on the blogosphere. It generates LOTS of news.

    My question: Why don’t more businesses say “I’m sorry”? So few do these days that you are bound to stand-out when you do.

19. Dan
    

    March 29th, 2006 at 3:30 pm

    Crushing. Add another spammer that wants to apologize to the list. Hey Plaxo, you missed the memo: You can’t make a second first impression.

20. Wyatt
    

    March 29th, 2006 at 3:42 pm

    Who’s next? Sms.ac will apologize for doing the same thing and refund all the premium messages they sent. Damn, I shouldn’t have said that. A cease and desist letter is waiting for me in my mailbox.

21. DuncanRat
    

    April 21st, 2006 at 11:09 am

    Probably too late to get in on this… but I figure everybody deserves the chance to hear my opinion. If SPAM didn’t work, people wouldn’t use it. I agree that it is an empty gesture to offer an apology, now, but if the world worked like it should, he would be apologizing in an effort to get back all the users that dropped his sorry-assed service the second they found out he was spamming. Gryphon… I agree with some of what you said. However, if this were simply an *automated service* would the CEO have issued a public apology for spamming? Something tells me one of the departments would have stopped it before it hit the press. I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

22. Bruce
    

    May 10th, 2006 at 5:42 am

    Thunderbird users - don’t touch that Plaxo “Test” button on Plaxo if you use Thunderbird email client - it erases your address book contents! Then try to get it back! LOL What a joke.

    The ONLY reason I tried Plaxo in the first place is because people keep sending me their update cards and it is a REAL 100% nuisance.

    Well - yesterday aginst better judgement - I signed up. An hour later I was trying to recover my contacts after Plaxo’s gift to the universe deleted all my address files in one click with their “test” button. Support for Thunderbird I now discover to clear up their messes is weak to poor. Plaxo’s solution for recovery is to sign up for their not-free service (which is free for a month) which I refuse to do. I am stil ltrying to recover my address book content. And the end of it all is - I hate Plaxo chats where they say - after a long debate - “Is there anything else we can do for you today?” Sure Plaxo - LISTEN TO WHAT I AM ASKING!! HOW CAN I GET MY DATABASE OF NAMES AND PHONE NUMBERS BACK!

23. Dave
    

    May 26th, 2006 at 12:10 pm

    Plaxo is a “RIP-O”. I tried their premium product for 29 days…cancelled within the 30 day trial…but was charged anyway. WTF! Now after 10 emails and a month later, I STILL have not recieved a refund of my $60. STAY AWAY from Plaxo…at least anything but the free stuff.