Plaxo listens. But is that enough?

So I am dabbling in Twitter and notice Andrew Spender comment about Plaxo. He had joined and felt "tricked" into joining. I respond by saying much the same thing. The 140-character limit on Twitter didn't allow me to say much more but I basically meant that when I joined, Plaxo ended up sending emails to all my contacts asking them to join. This was several years ago and I remember feeling that I had either been duped or at the very least I was pretty stupid for not fully understanding what was doing.

This morning I find a response on Twitter from John McCrea, head of marketing, asking me why. (Link to John's Twitter feed. Link to his blog.)

I have to say, I was impressed. He not only responded but did so in an open forum. Not sure if that's going to solve all their problems but it tells me they're at least paying attention and I give them credit for that.

The only problem with Twitter is that I wasn't able to provide John with a more thoughtful response. My issue with Plaxo now isn't the email blast they do -- for all I know that doesn't happen now although based on what Andrew said that's still the case. My issue is that it seems like a laggard. The few times a month I logged on it pretty much has all the material and feeds that Facebook, FriendFeed, Twitter, LinkedIn have. It doesn't seem to offer anything new.

What it did offer when I first joined -- automatic update of my address book -- is still valuable but all the other features offered by other sites make it less of a priority than it used to be.

Here's what I would do. Figure out a way to not only be an aggregator, which is what it is, but become the best. Friendfeed is close but it has flaws. (For example, it won't let me follow people who haven't joined Friendfeed.) Fix that and you've got a winner.