Keep it to yourself if you’re scared of Plaxo
It’s been a lot of attention around the Scoble/Plaxo/Facebook-thingy the last couple of days. While I can understand why Robert was tossed for a couple of hours, which apparently was the big news that day, I think the case is totally blown out of proportions.
It all boils down to one thing, as far as I’m concerned. Be a little critical as to what kind of information you put out there. Ask yourself: “Is this something I’d like Plaxo to get their hands on, or any other company or person, for that matter?” If the answer is no, leave it in your head, write it on a note or call someone and tell them. But don’t post it on Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, Tumblr or any of the other services that are connected to Plaxo in one way or another.
Judi Sohn is scared of Plaxo, and I tend to agree. The site is overly aggressive in its information gathering, and I deleted my account today, at least as a signal that I don’t approve of their methods. It probably doesn’t matter to Plaxo, but then again, Plaxo didn’t really add anything to me either, and I had almost forgotten about the site. It doesn’t really give me anything I can’t find through Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter, or a combination of the three.
So has the recent days hurt Plaxo’s reputation? I certainly think so, and I haven’t really heard or seen any comments from the company at all, which is never good. Apparently, they’re for sale, but I think I’d reconsider buying them if I had that kind of money.
The bottom line: As much as I am a huge fan of sharing, keep in the back of your mind if the information you put out there could be put to other uses than you intend. You never know who’ll own your favorite social network in a week, a month or a year…
