Plaxo Plaints
These are my complaints to the Plaxo guy, edited for privacy and public consumption.
1. This link: To accept this connection request, go to: www.xosishga
I think you should organize it the way Twitter does and have one link that says “to find out more about Mr. X click here: Mr.XLInk” and then another that says “to accept this request go here….”
I frequently get requests from strangers - names I don’t recognize- and it makes me nervous the way that statement is phrased because I think I’m going to be automatically connected.
2. Auto Connection Request
When I went to the link for “Group With Dumb Name” it only had one person connected to it. When I clicked on that guy’s picture, up popped “Name Deleted” who I never heard of. There was a message that said “We have sent a connection request to Name Deleted” when I did nothing of the sort. That is what I tweeted about and you said it can’t happen. I just found Name Deleted in a search, here’s what it says:
Name Deleted
Retired
Location
***Connection pending*** (Asterisks mine)
Meanwhile, I tried to find a way to rescind this connection request and couldn’t find it.
3. Blocking Strangers:
This guy, “Scum Ball” has sent me a request to connect several times. I kept ignoring the request but he sends it again. I looked for a way to block him and then finally reported him as an abuser which I really didn’t want to do. If that’s how you want me to handle it, let me know.
4. Stranger has just joined Plaxo Spam:
I got a special request to complain about this from another Twitter follower that followed our discussion on Twitter. Here’s an example:
“We wanted to let you know that Random Contact just joined Plaxo.”
Apparently he’s in my address book, but I have no idea who he is and I don’t care. And there’s my big problem…
5. Thus, Why I disparage Plaxo on Twitter:
a. Folders: The reason he’s in my address book is that the whole Plaxo set up with
folders is so unintuitive and confusing that I ended up sucking all
kinds of contacts into it from my former company over the course of a
year.
b. Sync Time Suck: Then I spent a day resyncing and resyncing because your definition of syncing was apparently different than my experience of it elsewhere. I
ended up paying $50 for the service because that was the only way I
had even the remotest probability of solving the problem.
c. No Spam for Fee
Then of course, the $50 was automatically billed to me on the anniversary. I
don’t remember getting the spam email reminding me about the upcoming bill.
6. Conclusion
a. Provide Utility: If I didn’t think Plaxo had the potential to be a good product and I hadn’t already loaded tons of contacts and sunk so much time into it, I wouldn’t be sending you this email. I think Plaxo thinks it’s a social network, but I think Plaxo should be a useful utility. It would be more useful to me as a mini CRM but it can’t do any of that kind of stuff easily as far as I can tell (create email lists etc.).
And it’s too much of a Pain in the Ass.
Thank you for your concern and making the effort.
Cathleen Rittereiser (@CathleenRitt)
