It seems Plaxo has been given a bit of a drubbing at the PC Forum.
Jason Calacanis of thespamweblog reports about how Plaxo’s Tim Koogle has been hit with questions about the company’s concealed business model, its intrusiveness, and why people should trust Plaxo, or the future owner of Plaxo. People even hissed when Plaxo was mentioned during Tim Koogle’s introduction.
But a poll of the audience revealed the software’s most obvious problem: It looks and feels like spam. Asked how many people had erased Plaxo requests almost everyone raised their hand, Jason writes. When asked if they had deleted more then 10 almost everyone kept their hands up. “Not a shock, and it is certainly not spam—but it sure feels like it to people,” Jason concludes.
More on Tim Koogle’s reception here, along with a response from the tireless Stacy Martin, whose job as ‘Plaxo Privacy Officer’ must have sounded a lot easier than it has turned out. Stacy reports that Plaxo will be adding a feature to address one of the biggest turnoffs: That even if you answer one ‘contact update request’, you’ll still get more.
I’m (slowly) building a resource on Plaxo issues here.