When should I give a company a second chance?

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My son with Plaxo executives John McCrea, VP of marketing, and Todd Masonis, VP of products and co-founder (middle)

I’ll be honest, I last tried Plaxo a couple of years ago. I hated the service. Yet another way to be bugged by people into joining yet another social service. And worse everytime I added someone to my Outlook contact Plaxo bugged them with an email to join up and keep their contact info up to date. I quickly uninstalled and didn’t try the service again. But I met someone who works at Plaxo at a recent Silicon Valley party and he said “everything has changed you should come back out and see what we’re up to.”

So, today, I did.

They are coming out with a new set of services on Monday. All I can say is “wow.”

I quickly signed on. I can’t say more until Monday, but Plaxo is definitely added back onto my set of services that I’m going to regularly use.

I’m glad I gave Plaxo a second chance.

By the way, the picture above is of my son with John McCrea, VP of marketing, and Todd Masonis, VP of Products and co-founder of Plaxo (middle).

Plaxo sign in their lobby.

Published by Robert Scoble

I help entrepreneurs build their technology business' story, help with getting ready for investors, with other launch plans, and many other strategic things that can help your new startup. Call to talk: +1-425-205-1921 (text first).

Published

30 thoughts on “When should I give a company a second chance?”

  5. I am glad that they stopped bothering non-plaxo users with updates, but won’t come back to them. They simply pissed off too many people I know, and these kind of services only work when my contacts also use the same service.

    Many of my contacts are on LinkedIn, and the LinkedIn Outlook add-in provides more or less the same functions, though I have to admit that Plaxo supports more e-mail applications.

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  6. I am glad that they stopped bothering non-plaxo users with updates, but won’t come back to them. They simply pissed off too many people I know, and these kind of services only work when my contacts also use the same service.

    Many of my contacts are on LinkedIn, and the LinkedIn Outlook add-in provides more or less the same functions, though I have to admit that Plaxo supports more e-mail applications.

    Like

  7. I haven’t regretted using Plaxo at all and I signed up for the premium version a couple weeks ago. Granted their emails can be a little annoying at times but that has improved and the ability to keep multiple address books and calendars in sync makes it all worth it.

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  8. I haven’t regretted using Plaxo at all and I signed up for the premium version a couple weeks ago. Granted their emails can be a little annoying at times but that has improved and the ability to keep multiple address books and calendars in sync makes it all worth it.

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  13. Glad to hear they’re improving the service.

    I was about to delete my account, but I’ll hang on until Monday.

    One problem with Plaxo is it doesn’t sync with Google Apps, which I use for my company. If it could sync with Google and maybe, even, handhelds… that would be great!

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  14. Glad to hear they’re improving the service.

    I was about to delete my account, but I’ll hang on until Monday.

    One problem with Plaxo is it doesn’t sync with Google Apps, which I use for my company. If it could sync with Google and maybe, even, handhelds… that would be great!

    Like

  15. I tried it before too, and couldn’t stand it.

    I’m still waiting for someone who can keep my Thunderbird AB, Palm AB, and phone AB in sync… and handle my phone via bluetooth sync using the windows AB.

    Then let me keep my Mac AB in sync.

    What a drag to have addresses in the places you need them huh?

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  16. I tried it before too, and couldn’t stand it.

    I’m still waiting for someone who can keep my Thunderbird AB, Palm AB, and phone AB in sync… and handle my phone via bluetooth sync using the windows AB.

    Then let me keep my Mac AB in sync.

    What a drag to have addresses in the places you need them huh?

    Like

  17. There’s one thing about Plaxo I love. A simple little phrase that made me stick with the service: “No further action is required”. I love it.

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  18. There’s one thing about Plaxo I love. A simple little phrase that made me stick with the service: “No further action is required”. I love it.

    Like

  19. This product looks good but I don’t see Linux support. Just OSX. If they support Thunderbird, they should support Linux.

    If Plaxo wants to they can outsource that to us and we’ll code the Linux plugin for them while their devs work on other stuff.

    Like

  20. This product looks good but I don’t see Linux support. Just OSX. If they support Thunderbird, they should support Linux.

    If Plaxo wants to they can outsource that to us and we’ll code the Linux plugin for them while their devs work on other stuff.

    Like

  21. I’ve been using Plaxo for about three years now, and while I have had issues at times, I love the service. I use it to synchronize my calendar and contacts in Outlook between my work computer and my home computer. I also sync my SmartPhone, but only at home. This system really seems to work for me. There may be better solutions out there, but I really haven’t taken the time to look. It just works. I don’t worry about sending the email reminders to others (at least after the first time). If people want to use it, they use it. If not, fine by me. I can’t wait to see what is coming next.

    Like

  22. I’ve been using Plaxo for about three years now, and while I have had issues at times, I love the service. I use it to synchronize my calendar and contacts in Outlook between my work computer and my home computer. I also sync my SmartPhone, but only at home. This system really seems to work for me. There may be better solutions out there, but I really haven’t taken the time to look. It just works. I don’t worry about sending the email reminders to others (at least after the first time). If people want to use it, they use it. If not, fine by me. I can’t wait to see what is coming next.

    Like

  23. Disclaimer: I used to work at Plaxo. I don’t anymore.

    I think Plaxo and LinkedIn are complimentary. I like to say that you use LinkedIn to grow your professional social network and you use Plaxo to maintain those connections. Plaxo is missing that key component of social networking. According to Plaxo’s blog, they released a LinkedIn synchronization (right now it’s just an importer) as a beta for premium users.

    The Plaxo Thunderbird client should work just fine on Linux. If it doesn’t the xpi for Plaxo is available under Mozilla Public License. (I don’t use Thunderbird, I use the Mac one.)

    As for support for more clients and sync endpoints, and possibly allowing you to build your own clients and interfaces… Well, I’ll wait to see what Scoble says on Monday.

    Like

  24. Disclaimer: I used to work at Plaxo. I don’t anymore.

    I think Plaxo and LinkedIn are complimentary. I like to say that you use LinkedIn to grow your professional social network and you use Plaxo to maintain those connections. Plaxo is missing that key component of social networking. According to Plaxo’s blog, they released a LinkedIn synchronization (right now it’s just an importer) as a beta for premium users.

    The Plaxo Thunderbird client should work just fine on Linux. If it doesn’t the xpi for Plaxo is available under Mozilla Public License. (I don’t use Thunderbird, I use the Mac one.)

    As for support for more clients and sync endpoints, and possibly allowing you to build your own clients and interfaces… Well, I’ll wait to see what Scoble says on Monday.

    Like

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