Intelius has acquired Spock, according to Venture Beat. Intelius is a company that performs background checks.
Spock is a people search engine. Spock launched in the summer of 2007. At first, Spock was open as an invitation-only beta. In August 2007, it launched to the public, with 1.5 billion people indexed.
Posted by Nathania Johnson at 2:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Trovix grew up in the Googleplex but would thrive down the road at MS SV Live Search. Searchification of boring resumes made a name for Trovix, leading to the launch of its free, live jobs search (read: white/blue collar) and recruitment site. Now job candidates can find more suitable jobs; and Jobs, more suitable candidates.
Why would Trovix find itself more at home in Microsoft Live Search than even at Google? Simple. Great artificial minds think alike.
Trovix search technology extracts attributes from job descriptions and CVs the way Microsoft Live Search extracts attributes from online content in key verticals (Shopping; Health, Entertainment, Local). In simple terms, by parsing words, phrases and acronyms their search technologies determine a database of intentions on the fly.
Trovix is a vertical search engine (people/jobs). Live Search aggregates vertical search engines in a SHEL game where the Microsoft prize is the searchers' true intentions; the ultimate payout: a bigger slice of online ad dollars.
Key Trend To Watch: Microsoft Live Search bucks the trend of human intervention in search. Sophisticated filters and algorithms improve relevancy.Lately Google has tried to put a human face on search, emphasizing they're more than just an algorithm.
Posted by Kevin Heisler at 2:17 AM | Permalink
The long awaited public unveiling of Spock, the people search engine, takes place today. According to company representatives, they already have 1.5 billion people indexed. I did a brief review of Spock back on June 29th.
One of the neat things about Spock is that as a vertical search engine, it operates in a single context. Terms like "boxer" lists famous boxers, or "baseball" lists famous baseball players. Concpetually, this will help you narrow down on people you are looking for more quickly, especially when you don't know the exact name of the person you are looking for.
Users can tag your name with labels. For instance, one beta user recently tagged me with "Search Engine Watch". These labels help define what searches you will appear for. In addition, people can claim their profiles, which then provides them with the ability to edit your own information. For example, you can uploade a photo. The service also already has anti-spam mechanisms built-in, although it will be interesting to see how these stand the test of time.
Overall, it's a cool looking service, worthy of checking out.
Posted by at 9:28 AM | Permalink
In today's By the Numbers column, " ZoomInfo – People Finder and Company Intelligence Tool," Eric Enge checks out Zoominfo, a tool you can use to find a long lost buddy or to get business intelligence when your company is small and data is hard to come by.
Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:01 AM | Permalink
Expanding further from its phone directory roots, WhitePages.com has added third-party results from Web search, public records, and professional profiles, and a fledgling e-mail search product.
The Web search data will come from Microsoft's Live Search index, with queries formulated by WhitePages.com to return the most relevant people-based or location-based results. Public records data, including criminal record and background checks, will come from a U.S. Search data feed. Professional profiles for people and companies will come from ZoomInfo. Additional providers in related fields will likely be added later this year.
The company has also begun indexing e-mail addresses from third-party opt-in lists for a premium service that lets users get in touch via e-mail for a fee, without knowing the destination address. The addresses on the list were scrubbed for accuracy, and all names on the list were contacted and given the choice to opt out of being listed in the directory.
Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:21 AM | Permalink
Maps have long been important in politics, as anyone who works in politics or watches the TV coverage on election night knows. And then there's the familiar saying, "All politics is local." Now, as reported on the Google Earth Blog, Google Earth has added "U.S. Elections Guide" and "U.S. Congressional Districts" information layers. By selecting these layers in Google Earth (not available on Google Maps) you can see boundaries of U.S. voting districts, links to information and news about the candidates, where to vote, campaign finance data and other election-related information.
Map-based real estate site HotPads has also created an interactive elections map for the coming November election. Click on any state and you can drill down on U.S. Congressional districts and information on representatives from Wikipedia and other sources. Here's an example from Florida.
I'm sure there are more out there. Let us know if you find them.
Posted by Greg Sterling at 10:50 AM | Permalink
ZoomInfo, a vertical that mines open web content for information about people (and a service we've written about many times) recently received a patent from the U.S. Patent Office. Look for an official announcement next week.
Patent Info: Computer method and apparatus for collecting people and organization information from Web sites Filed: March 30, 2001 Awarded: January 3, 2006
Abstract: Computer processing method and apparatus for searching and retrieving Web pages to collect people and organization information are disclosed. A Web site of potential interest is accessed. A subset of Web pages from the accessed site are determined for processing. According to types of contents found on a subject Web page, extraction of people and organization information is enabled. Internal links of a Web site are collected and recorded in a links-to-visit table. To avoid duplicate processing of Web sites, unique identifiers or Web site signatures are utilized. Respective time thresholds (time-outs) for processing a Web site and for processing a Web page are employed. A database is maintained for storing indications of domain URLs, names of respective owners of the URLs as identified from the corresponding Web sites, type of each Web site, processing frequencies, dates of last processings, outcomes of last processings, size of each domain and number of data items found in the last processing of each Web site.
ZoomInfo also holds two other U.S. Patents that were awarded when the company was known as Eliyon. + Computer method and apparatus for determining site type of a web site + Computer method and apparatus for determining content owner of a website
Not only does ZoomInfo operate its own site (free) along with extended fee-based services for clients but also powers "people search" for A9, Business.com, and others.
A bit more about ZoomInfo, the company, in this Hoover's brief.
Posted by Gary Price at 11:52 PM | Permalink
We've learned that vertical search engine ZoomInfo has been selected to power the "people search" function on A9. If you want to check it out, look for a check/tick box on the A9 home page labeled "People." Much more about ZoomInfo in this overview for SearchDay from December.
Posted by Gary Price at 10:56 AM | Permalink
A few weekends ago Wall Street Journal reporter, Kevin Delaney, gave me a call asking for a few ideas, thoughts, and suggestions about useful specialized databases (aka verticals) that would be of interest to WSJ readers.
Today, the article was published and it's titled, "Beyond Google." You'll find it linked here. However, at least for the moment, Kevin's story is only available to WSJ subscribers.
A couple of quick comments and notes:
1) Thanks Kevin for asking for my suggestions and for the quote. You should know that for each database suggested and included in the final article, 40-50 more could have been included and received a well-deserved mention. I had to limit my picks for obvious reasons. Of course, Kevin spoke to others and also included their suggestions.
2) The "Beyond Google" headline is great. The word Google has a way of drawing peoples attention and the title of the headline is often the title of presentations I give. Why? A presentation titled, "Learn about Specialty Databases" does not pack in the crowds. Tossing the word Google into the title, does.
Specialty tools do not replace general purpose large web engines like Google, Ask Jeeves, Yahoo, Gigablast, Exalead, and others. A web researcher should have a good working knowledge of both general databases and specialty tools. Plus, in terms of some of my presentations, the word "Google" gets the crowd in the door and then I have time to not only talk about Google (many don't have any idea of what it can offer) but also have time to talk about the great useful stuff being developed by AJ, Yahoo, and elsewhere. So in reality it's a two pronged presensation. As I posted on Friday, it's clear that many people who use these and other tools have little to no idea of how these services work and what they offer.
+ General web engines (The full landscape, how to take full advantage of some of their services, creating better queries). These days it can also include time letting the audience know about verticals that these companies also provide like Yahoo Audio Search.
+ Specialized databases (verticals) the power and often time saving capabilities they offer. The challenge for many is just knowing about them.
3) If you read the blog on a regular basis, you'll likely notice that Kevin used several suggestions that I've written about on our site. Cool!
4) I was especially pleased to see the WSJ article mention the wonderful RegLightGreen bibliographic database and NetLibrary, available for free from many libraries that offers the full text of thousands of books. Remember, as I wrote in this guest column for BetaNews, public, university, and many other types of libraries offer FREE, 24x7x365, access from any web computer (no need to go to the library) to a full range of specialized databases that often offer content not found in web engines (full text journals, newspapers, magazines, reference books, etc.) OR packaged in such a way to add extra value to the data. Plus, these databases tend to offer search capabilities not found from general web engines. Every library offers different service and databases. The easiest to learn what your library offers is to either look at their web site or make a quick call.
Postscript: I'm happy to report that at least for the moment, it's the most popular story on the WSJ site today. Yes, I think the public is beginning to understand the value of specialized tools.
Posted by Gary Price at 1:27 PM | Permalink
ZoomInfo, a "people search" company I wrote about in the SearchDay article Searching for People with ZoomInfo back in March, has released several enhancements. While the new features are powerful and offer good information in many cases, they're not without their flaws. Gary has more about the new tools in today's SearchDay article, ZoomInfo Enhances People Search.
Posted by Chris Sherman at 8:10 AM | Permalink
Back in 2003, my SearchDay article A Hearty Buffet of Look-Up Databases looked at the many free online databases that Melissa Data, a mailing list company, made available. Nearly three years later, that "hearty buffet" of databases has grown even larger. It's now home to more than 30 databases and tools, including ZIP code maps, congressional district maps, US home sales by ZIP code and more. Below are some of the latest offerings:
+ ZIP Code Maps "Displays a map with the boundary of a 5-digit ZIP Code" Uses Google Maps
+ City Maps "Displays a city or town boundary map and demographics." Uses Google Maps
+ Congress Maps "Maps of a congressional districts and information about representative." Uses Google Maps
+ Home Sales "Get the monthly home sales and selling price by ZIP Code." See Also: HomePages.com
+ County Maps "Displays a county boundary map." Uses Google Maps
+ School District Maps "Displays public school district boundary maps nationwide." Uses Google Maps
Melissa Data is a fantastic one-stop shop for this ready reference type of data. A user gets 500 lookups per day for free. It's possible to get more by subscribing to one of two plans.
Posted by Gary Price at 9:37 PM | Permalink
ZoomInfo, the Boston-based, privately-held "people search" company that we've blogged about several times and Chris wrote a SearchDay overview about, is adding a some new features to their service today.
In a nutshell, ZoomInfo finds info about people found on the open web and uses it to build profiles or dossiers if you prefer using artificial intelligence. ZoomInfo offers both free ad-supported services as well as fee-based services (more features) for companies and individuals called Power Search.
ZoomInfo was around for many years when it was known as Eliyon. The name change took place in March.
OK, let's take a look at what's new from ZoomInfo.
+ Larger Database. More than 27 million profiles are now available. That's up from about 25 million.
+ Several types of accounts are now available. Each offering different services. The free or basic service offers, "allows you to create, edit, and monitor the popularity of your web summary, as well as reach out and contact other people you find in ZoomInfo." The monthly premium subscription for $49.95 offers full access, "to all of ZoomInfo's Premium features whenever you need them." They also offer a weekly full access option for $19.95.
+ Their new "relationship search engine" that according to the company, eliminates, or at least decrease, the need to build a network manually and mine it for several degrees of connections to locate and communicate with your target."
Pardon the cliche, but only time will tell with this one.
People Search Searching for people is easy, just enter a name and some additional info (if known) and click search. Here's my profile. Not bad. But spending some time with the database will show that the quality of profiles truly varies from person to person. To build my profile you'll see that ZoomInfo used 801 references from the web. Btw, all of these pages are cached locally on ZoomInfo servers. Which once again illustrates that just getting a page removed from the Google cache doesn't mean it's no longer available somewhere on the web.
Good News The good news is that I have seen a noticeable improvement in Zoom's technology in the past couple of years. However, it's still FAR FROM perfect or even close to it and as a long way to go. One issue is what's called "authority control" and without a well organized and maintained authority file (admittedly easier said than done) you'll find many entries that MIGHT be for the same person. It's hard to tell and can make a thorough search a challenge. It's possible to merge various profiles about yourself into one. If you want claim several listings it will require a credit card number but you WILL NOT be charged. It's definitely a caveat emptor situation with ZoomInfo but you already know that about many web tools.
Company Search I've also noticed today that ZoomInfo is now offering a new "company search" option. A search for Google found the folks in Mt. View. To get a list of competitors, you're required to have a paid subscription. I also found an entry for a company named Google Groups that's listed as a company in Michigan. Hmmm. (-:. The url listed took me to a an ad page that had nothing to do with Google. Currency is also an issue. Here's the company page for Ask Jeeves but no mention of the acquisition by IAC and their new stock ticker. The same is true for our site. No mention of our old or new ownership, no mention of Danny as the person in charge, etc. Topix.net CEO Rich Skrenta is listed but Chris Tolles, VP of Sales and Marketing and Bob Truel, a Co-Founder are not. They are listed on the company site. However, Pam McKenzie, a restaurant owner in Florida is a key member of the company? No, she's not.
What about Yahoo? It lists Irene Rosenfeld and Charles Koch as Chairman and Chief Executive Officers along with Terry Semel (Yahoo's real CEO) Well, Ms. Rosenfeld is the Chairman and CEO of Frito-Lay and Mr. Koch is the person in charge at Koch Industries.
So, just like the rest of ZoomInfo and other reference tools, let's be careful out there. I like the idea of the company profiles but currency and accuracy are ESSENTIAL to make them useful and trustworth. At this point, they need work.
As I mentioned earlier, ZoomInfo encourages users to claim their personal profile, edit it, correct it, etc. A company spokesperson told me that tens of thousands have done so. Also, I'm unable to figure out what can stop a person from claiming another's profile by simply getting a free email address from one of many services and registering as that person?
So, what else does a new ZoomInfo results page offer. Again, let's use my profile.
+ Below my name, you'll spot an add to colleagues box. "Adding friends & colleagues to your Web Summary is a great way to build your professional network and help you be found." If you had me, I'll get an email allowing me to confirm or deny the request. Yes, it's ZoomInfo the social networking service. Free.
+ Next to that button, a provide feedback button. Feel like sending the person a note. If you're a registered user you can. Free.
Now, to the right side of a profile page.
+ An option to have updates delivered via RSS
+ You'll see a "Keyword Search" box, to access this function and run keyword searches on these terms, you'll need a paid subscription.
+ Below that, a list (beta) of people that ZoomInfo says I'm colleagues with. I personally know several of these people like Chris Sherman (-:, Phil Bradley, Peter Scott, Steven Bell, and Herbert Van De Sompel. Overall, not a bad list at all. Primarily people that run in the library and search circles. Of course, it can't list every colleague but this is a good start on what could be a powerful tool in the future. Why someone from the World Wildlife Fund Inc is listed as a colleague is beyond me. The same goes for Thomas J. Michalak, the Executive Director of the Harvard Business School. I'm honored to be listed as one of his colleagues but I've never met the man, spoke at Harvard, or attended the B-School. My mom will be happy.
Paid listings on ZoomInfo are powered by Yahoo. People search on Business.com is powered by ZoomInfo. Additonally, Zoom has announced content deals with Bnet.com and SimplyHired.com.
As I said earlier, improvements are being made at ZoomInfo but they still have plenty of room to move forward to make it a must use research tool.
Postscript: In his March article about ZoomInfo, Chris touches on privacy issues.
What about privacy issues? The information ZoomInfo has collected is all freely available on the web. The company doesn't buy data from information brokers or other sources. And the focus on professional and educational details, rather than personal information, combined with a straightforward privacy policy, should alleviate most concerns.Postscript 2: Want some stats about the makeup of the ZoomInfo database? Visit this page.
Postscript 3: Full news release is available here.
Posted by Gary Price at 9:18 AM | Permalink
Netimperative reports that popular UK-based suite of directory databases, 192.com has added a genealogy service to its list of online offerings that also include business lookup, a people finder databases with material from electoral rolls, and maps/directions.
From the article: 192Genealogy uses the firm?s present day residential data sets, which total over 160 million listings with over 300 million births, marriages and deaths records stretching back to 1837, the year Queen Victoria ascended the throne. The firm has also added the 1861 Census, the year Abraham Lincoln became president of the US, which includes details of ancestors occupations as well as a range of historical facts that let people step discover their own personal family history or possibly the history of their home. Keith Marsden, managing director of 192.com, said: ?There is no other site that provides the depth of detail that we can on both individuals and their properties. By adding a layer of historical data across this information, people can build a comprehensive family tree for relatives that will allow them to discover not only their family¹s past but new family from the present that they may never know they had.?
Posted by Gary Price at 2:13 PM | Permalink
Phil Bradley's updated his Country Based Search Engines page, so if you're looking for a search engine serving a particular country, it's a good resource to consult. Phil also turned me on to another good resource a few months ago, Infobel's guide to telephone directories around the world.
Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:34 AM | Permalink
Lycos has a new Search Katrina Missing Persons Sites meta search service now up. In one go, it checks listings from more than 35 missing person sites that have sprung up since the storm. Sources of these listings are listed in the right-hand navigation. You can also add a site here.
Yahoo also has released a meta search tool that simultaneously searches for names across a number of missing person boards from various sites including Yahoo Groups, NOLA.com, and MSNBC.Posted by Danny Sullivan at 2:40 PM | Permalink
Both Revolution and Netimperative report that 192.com, an online directory enquiry service from the UK has just relaunched. The online directory enquiry used to rely on subscriptions for revenue but will now rely on advertising. Some "extended" information is still available by subscription but it's even possible to earn credits to view the data for free.
Revenues, previously generated by subscriptions, will now be focused on online advertising via a new priority listings product, which enables listed businesses to pay to appear at the top of the search results.Four categories of search are available and available from tabs on the 192.com home page: + People + Businesses + Classified/Local + Maps
Need an aerial view of a location? 192.com now offers aerial views for many UK locations. Here's an example.
The content that 192.com searches (they claim about 130 million entries) comes from a variety of sources including BT, Thomson, Dun & Bradstreet and the Electoral Roll.
The firm has also introduced a web-based mobile phone tracking system, ?Phone Track?, targeted at parents wanting to keep an eye on their childrens? whereabouts.Posted by Gary Price at 3:42 PM | Permalink
MSN Replaces InfoSpace With WhitePages.com covers MSN dropping InfoSpace as its white pages provider in the US and shifting instead to WhitePages.com. MSN partners by linking out via the Look It Up section in the left-hand navigation of its home page.
Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:51 AM | Permalink
Last week, ZoomInfo launched a people search engine, with profiles of more than 25 million people. If you have even a minimal presence on the web, it's quite likely ZoomInfo has built a profile about you, which is free for anyone to see. The profiles contain information about your educational background, current and previous employers and other details. For a system that's been built entirely using computers, the profiles seem remarkably complete in most cases.
Today's SearchDay article, Searching for People with ZoomInfo, looks at ZoomInfo and the kinds of things that it reveals about people. A longer version for Search Engine Watch members describes how to create your own ZoomInfo profile, or edit or delete information in your existing profile, if the company has already created one about you.
Posted by Chris Sherman at 4:25 PM | Permalink
Long-standing meta search engine Ixquick has relaunched, with a new ability to look up phone numbers for people or businesses in multiple countries, shopping search results powered by various providers (such as PriceGrabber in the US) and a new "results honing" feature that lets you delete or move up pages listed in web results. Hate something? Use the X icon to move it out of the list and drop out other pages deemed similar to it. Like something? Use the checkmark icon to get similar results. A rundown of what else is new can be found in this press release (PDF format).
Posted by Danny Sullivan at 6:20 AM | Permalink
People search company Eliyon is now ZoomInfo.com. They have a new search interface and have launched three new advanced search options. The service is well worth a look, but be aware that the technology still needs improvement.
ZoomInfo, under the old Eliyon name, has offered both free and fee-based people searching for about four years. Here are reviews from 2001 and 2002.
More recently, I've blogged about them several times including A Look at a Few Boston Area Search Companies and this post, Business.com Adds People, where I point out that Zoominfo/Eliyon provides the same data to Business.com and Lycos People Search. They also offer their database on the HighBeam Research site.
Today, Forever Famous from Newsweek looks at the relaunched service and examines some of its features, such as the ability to edit your profile, as well as some of the privacy issues raised.
Postscript: See also Eliyon Renamed Zoom Information with New Consumer-Oriented Strategy to Match from Information Today for an update on the service.
Posted by Gary Price at 9:22 PM | Permalink
Yes, Google has (as others do) a phone number search service, as we've written before. Still, it can be a shock to some people if they discover their number is "listed" on Google. Is It Too Easy To Find People On Google? looks at the issues some may have with this type of service at Google and the many other companies that offer it. But in the end, the issue is really with data providers who collect this information from public records, as the story explains.
Posted by Danny Sullivan at 1:26 PM | Permalink
Word from business search vertical, Business.com that they've added people search to their site. The data comes from Eliyon, who crawl primarily the open web (caveats about data quality, of course) and AI to build profiles of people. Eliyon also offers access to the same database on their own site, in fact it offers an additional search field. Eliyon also offers access via Lycos People Search.
I wrote in a blog post about a week ag that although far from perfect, I've noticed some solid improvement with Eliyon in the past few months. One of the biggest problems that I continue to encounter is the lack of "authority control." Btw, this is not only an issue for Eliyon but for many web engines and uncontrolled databases. Yes, AI can help but it's still not perfect.
To learn more about authority control and how it works with a controlled database, take a look at the authorities database that The Library of Congress makes available online (it can also be a great research tool). It offers definitive records for the names used in their catalogs and databases. More about it here. OCLC also has an authority file. For example, I'm officially: Price, Gary, 1965-.
Posted by Gary Price at 4:33 PM | Permalink
Google has a phone book search service, but you might not realize it. A new site, spotted via Google Blogoscoped, makes it easier to tap into it Google PhoneBook.
Visit Googlefone, and you can enter a name of a person or business, plus some location data, and you'll be shown any matching publicly-listed numbers that Google knows about.
Tara Calishain has a long-standing interface that works similarly. It will only check business listings, but the drop down box with US states is nice.
Courtesy of Tara, another write-up from her explains how you can also use some power commands or search syntaxes to tap into the phonebook. Do a query like:
phonebook: edwards california
That will show all business or residential listings that match. Use bphonebook to just check for business listings and rphonebook to just check for residential listings.
Meanwhile, Gary reminds that Argali is his current favorite tool for doing phone lookups. You'll find his review here: A Multi-Faceted Phone Directory Lookup Tool.
He also notes that Yahoo provides a way to check its own phone service, Yahoo People Search. Unlike Google, Yahoo conveniently provides its own direct interface right on its site, rather than leaving it for others to create.
The idea that people might find your phone number freak you out? Get an unlisted number, as these services pull from public sources. But you can use special forms at Yahoo and Google to get out of their listings, if you're currently showing.
Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:44 AM | Permalink