I like the idea of keeping things in sync. I use a variety of machines and handhelds and being able to use the network to my advantage is cool. When I recently installed the new AIM on my work PC, I got Plaxo inluded as you can link your contacts through Plaxo with your AIM screen name and thought this was a good thing.
I updated my contact info since I have moved since I last used the service and got an email back telling me that Jonathan Greene had moved! Um, Plaxo, I am Jonathan Greene and outside of a bad George Constanza impression, I don’t often refer to myself in the third person. The whole premise of Plaxo is keeping all your information up to date — the first step should be knowing who you are.
I only have a single contact card for myself in my files so it’s a bit lame for such a message to get sent…
Hi Jonathan, I’m the Plaxo engineer that wrote the alert-sending code you’re talking about. We do know who you are, but we chose to send alerts even when you have yourself in your address book, because a lot of people like to do this to see what others see when they change their cards. In other words, by adding yourself to your address book, you’re kind of pretending to be another user, and we thought the potential confusion of seeing an alert about yourself would be better than not getting an alert about yourself if that’s what you really wanted. Do you think it would be better / less confusing if we stopped doing that, and/or provided some special embellishment on self-alerts that says “yeah we recognize this is you”? Thanks for sharing your feedback! js
Joseph –
Thanks for an amazingly quick response considering this was on my blog. I guess you guys are actively monitoring Technorati or some similar service so good for you!
I would definitely distinguish the messages… perhaps with a note in the subject and even reinforced in the message itself – near the header.
One more note – it’s not clear whether I am sending this update to everyone I know automatically (I hope not) but I was thinking I was in fact telling everyone since I was getting the same looking message.
I think a few tweaks would simply confirm how well the system works (or is perceived to be working). I really do appreciate that you’ve replied here. Hope the feedback is helpful.
JG
Jonathan – I am the Privacy Officer here at Plaxo. Member’s feedback is always appreciated and I’ll forward your suggestions onto Joseph, if he hasn’t already seen them.
Alerts are an area of the service we continually look to improve. As follow up to your additonal questions, perhaps I can help explain a few things to clear up any confusion.
Alerts are generated anytime a contact’s entry is your own address book is updated by Plaxo. As it is your address book, you likely want to know when something occurs in your address book (though there is a Plaxo Preference you can uncheck to turn off alerts altogether).
Address book entries are automatically updated by Plaxo in two cases:
First – if a contact responds to an update request message you sent to them. You send a contact an Update Request, they receive it, they manually respond, Plaxo automatically updates their entry in your address book with their response, and you receive a Plaxo Alert.
But the second case is a bit more subtle, but more ideal. If you have a contact in your address book who is ALSO a Plaxo member, they may also be sharing their Plaxo card information with you, based on their Privacy settings.
If they are sharing their card information with you, Plaxo will automatically update their entry in your address book each time they change their own Plaxo card information. They shared their card info with you, they update their Plaxo card, Plaxo updates your address book with their new Plaxo card info, and you receive a Plaxo Alert.
So in your case, when you updated your Plaxo card information, Plaxo automatically updated the address books of any other Plaxo members you have chosen to share your Plaxo card with. Those other Plaxo members were automatically updated, and only those members received the Plaxo Alert. No one in your address book received an alert unless they were also a Plaxo member with sharing permission to your card.
You received an Alert because you have yourself in your own address book. You are obviously sharing your information with yourself. So Plaxo updated the matching entry in your own address book (for yourself), and then you received an Alert.
I agree it can be confusing, especially in this case, but hopefully this explanation provides greater insight.
Stacy Martin
Plaxo Privacy Officer
privacy @t plaxo.com