Chasing the Wind

Do you use Plaxo?

I’ve been using it for years and generally been happy with it. The feature that originally drew me to it was that I could send somebody a link and they could update my address book. Instead of replying to my email and then me cutting and pasting into my Outlook, they could just edit my Outlook entry directly.

Those friends that have used Plaxo over the years have been able to update their contact information over the years. I remember once a few years ago, one of my contacts updated their information with a new company, job title, and city. I called him up and congratulated him on his new job.

Once, somebody retired took a part-time job and updated their Plaxo contact information. I called him at work, and he said, “How did you get this number?” I told him that he gave it to me. 🙂

But lately it’s given me a couple of problems I can’t seem to work around. The retired gentleman changed part-time jobs, but he didn’t really like Plaxo and doesn’t use it anymore. I updated his contact information by hand with his new work information, but every once in a while Plaxo puts the old information back. After all, that’s what’s on file.

My sister and brother-in-law years ago got a cell phone and entered it into Plaxo. Later, she got a separate phone. I’d put the new phone number into my PDA, and then sometime later I’d call her… but on her husband’s phone. She’d ask why I didn’t call her on her phone, and I’d be confused why I had obsolete information again. It took a while to figure out that it was Plaxo doing that, and she updated her information. That’s not the only time that’s happened; every once in a while, Plaxo “updates” my address book with obsolete information from somebody no longer using Plaxo. In some cases, they don’t want to update their Plaxo information.

What if I don’t want to use Plaxo anymore? Does my obsolete information continually update other people’s address books for all eternity? Am I compelled to continue to use Plaxo for the rest of my life to prevent that from happening?

other obsolete contact
my contact