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!

That may be the unintended benefit from an apology from Plaxo’s CEO.  The guys at TechCruch blog about it today. My take: Isn’t it amazing how people react these days to an apology for doing something wrong?  Apologies make 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.

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).

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.