We are not your marketing department!

[bookguy]

I am disgusted by the recent change in the Plaxo interface that requires me to "invite" another person to use Plaxo, rather than simply being able to send them a single request for an update. We are not your marketing department and you should pay for your own advertising. I am paying for Premium service and I will not be responsible for finding you new customers.

If I do not see a change back to the old interface, that allowed me to request updates individually (something I always did when I put someone new in my Contacts folder), then Plaxo will have ceased to be useful to me and I will have to switch to another service or program.

Thank you.

[privacyguy]

Some distractors have described update requests as having your contacts do "data entry" for you that primarily benefits the Plaxo member. To improve on this, we've recently introduced "Invites". The "invite" feature is not an advertising message. It's intended to invite the contact to join Plaxo for the benefit of both parties. By joining Plaxo, you and your contacts can automatically share your details with each other and stay automatically updated. This is what Plaxo is intended for, and is an ideal situation as opposed to routinely sending out update request emails.

But we are collecting feedback and usability of invites and further improvements will be coming. We appreciate you sharing your thoughts.

[bookguy]

The word you are looking for is "detractors," not "distractors," and those people should not object to ensuring that their contacts get their correct and up-to-date information. In business, communication is key and we should all want users to have the latest information.

The invite feature clearly seems more like an advertisement and I do not wish to send them, so now my only solution is to send mass update requests every two to three months, since I can no longer easily send individual requests.

[privacyguy]

In business, communications is key, but relationships are even more important.

IMHO, in the long run constant update requests only off-load onto your contacts the work of keeping your address book updated. It doesn't matter whether they be sent individually or in batch. Eventually that type of 1-sided relationship will have an adverse affect on the overall relationship.

The most beneficial long-term solution is to encourage your contacts to join a service like Plaxo, that keeps contact information updated automatically and accessible fwithout placing any burden upon either party. If that's not reason to encourage your contacts to join Plaxo, then we are missing something. Invites are an effective and easy way in which to accomplish this.

But that said, we have responded to the feedback we've received and made some slight changes to the Contact Details view and returned the "Request updated details" button.

[privacyguy]

The word you are looking for is "detractors,"

:rolleyes: My bad. I guess I should have proof-read my response :o

[bookguy]

That's not a productive response. The function of Plaxo, GoodContacts, and other services that allow users to get updated information from their contacts is a real and needed function. My issue is with the way you folks are going about it, which lately is by (1) decreasing the functionality of the program with things like 1000 contact update limits (which can easily be avoided by creating multiple folders with less than 1000 contacts, so all you are really doing is annoying your users with this limit) and (2) eliminating convenient functions like the one-click request update on individual contact cards, which is useful if you add someone new to your contact list from someplace other than an email (I realize this is a shocker, but many folks still add contacts from places like a business card or telephone call and not an email).

You folks need to spend some time with actual small business owners. I think you'll find many opportunities to make more money and not waste your time simply trying to find more members, a percentage of which will pay for the upgraded version of Plaxo. You should stop trying to get your current member base from being your advertising/marketing resources. The reality is that I came to Plaxo because I got update requests and checked out the program. Advertising the FUNCTIONALITY of the program is far more effective than asking people to send emails to their friends "inviting" them to join Plaxo.