It is interesting to see how the Plaxo company (a part of Comcast) http://www.plaxo.com/ is trying to get some steady flow of income. Their latest approach was to move the synchronization function to Plaxo Premium, a $60 per year subscription. This function helped me to synchronize my address information with my friends and colleagues, on-line and Outlook, and that alone made me a Plaxo supporter early 2003.
This is a really poor decision, and if not changed, it will have vast consequences. Plaxo has ~40 million users, where 10% (numbers from http://www.geek.com/) will probably pay the subscription fee (gives Plaxo ~$20M annually). But, 90% will probably not, and these will not be able to update and synchronize their address information. So, even if I pay the subscription fee, I still need to manually update the information from my friends and colleagues that's not paying.
The decision came into effect July 1, 2009 and several of the people in my network have stopped using Plaxo. The discussions on different web-forums have been heated and there has not been any reply from Plaxo on my concerned emails.
I predict that this is the beginning of the downfall for Plaxo. I must say, I enjoyed the trip. But, I am very sorry that it ends in this way. To all friends and colleagues, please be aware of Plaxo..
