I asked Tim Koogle—while here at PC Forum—why people hate Plaxo. I told him how a dozen people from the conference had told me they would never use Plaxo because of fears of how they would use the data (i.e. spam, marketing, etc.) He said that it was an old myth that people have venom for Plaxo. Then I gave him the punch line—that I had gotten these emails in the last couple of weeks. I added that the reason people are concerned is because they have not revealed their business model.

Esther explained to Tim that he should make Plaxo's mission and the size of company clearer to the customers so that they would feel more comfortable with it.

When I asked Tim what the business model was — there was a long pause before he said it was either going to be a consumer pays, or an enterprise pays. I get the sense he didn't want to tip his cards. He said the pay trials would start shortly (as in any day now.)

John Patrick, one of the most respected guys at the conference, challenged Koogle to explain why we should trust Plaxo, or the FUTURE OWNER of Plaxo.

Esther pointed out you don't have to use Plaxo.

I caught up with Koogle over lunch and we had a nice talk, and I'm sure he wouldn't associate himself with anything nefarious. In fact, I love and use Plaxo everyday—it is a brilliant piece of software. However, I told Tim that I think that the product is so slick, so well-designed and so pretty that it scares people and that it would have been better if  they made it Craigslist style (that is, less slick.)

Update: People hissed when Plaxo was mentioned during Tim's introduction.

Update Two: In an audience poll of how many people have erased Plaxo requests almost everyone raised their hand. When ask if they had deleted more then 10 almost everyone kept their hands up. Not a shock, and it is certainly not spam—but it sure feels like it to people. If it walks like a duck is it a duck?