I use Plaxo (not to be confused with Paxil) to manage many of my contacts. It’s an online address book that can automatically sync with many PC-based address books. One of the features is the ability to send your contacts revised contact information when things change in your life.

I recently updated my information and sent the information out to my contacts using Plaxo. As is often the case, a bunch of the emails bounced as people left companies, changed ISPs, etc.

But instead of sending all of the jargony error messages to me and flooding my Inbox, Plaxo collected the errors and sent a summary email of the email addresses that failed, the reasons they failed and a link to see the actual error message. There’s even a useful help file that explains the various reasons an email address can fail.

The email addresses that fail are also flagged in the contact record.

People who receive the email can also click to say that they don’t care about me and don’t want to get updates about me again. This is not reflected in the contact’s record.

It’s a very elegant, user-focused design.