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Spock, a people search application
By Michael Lundberg | November 10, 2007
Over the last couple of days, I’ve seen a resurgence in activity related to my account on the Web 2.0 site, Spock (http://www.spock.com). In the last two days, I’ve received four separate requests to accept Spock users into my “trust” network. Granted, four invitations isn’t a ton of traffic, but considering that I’ve never received any Spock-related emails since I got an account several months ago, it’s a lot. Given this new activity from Spock, I decided to update my profile and take another look at the service.
So, what is Spock all about? Well, according to www.spock.com/about, the site is people search application. Since I’m in sales, I’m familiar with using various web tools to locate people. To better understand what Spock is about, let’s look at what it isn’t:
First: Spock is not like Jigsaw (http://www.jigsaw.com). Jigsaw is more of a private wikipedia for business users. As I see it, Jigsaw is a private database of business card information that is supplied by it’s users. At Jigsaw, you must pay to get access to the information in the database (or earn points by submitting someone else’s business card information). Typically, you’ll only get the information that you would normally see on a business card. In theory, the stale database entries will be corrected by other users when they submit updated business card information to the database. Jigsaw doesn’t crawl the web looking for information on MySpace, Linkedin, XING, and Wikipedia. It depends solely on the information added by it’s users and it depends on those same users to keep that information fresh and new.
Second: Spock is not like Spoke (http://www.spoke.com). Spoke is an open business network. From the Spoke FAQ, it does appear to do some web crawling to find information on users. Spoke also uses privately owned published information that is available for redistribution. Lastly, it uses contributed information from users, including a Spoke toolbar “designed to evaluate aggregated email traffic in Microsoft Outlook between Spoke members to determine the strength and reach of their network.” (http://www.spoke.com/resources/faq.html) Now, I’ve never used the Spoke service, but that just sounds scary. It’s like the Spoke toolbar is tracking your email. Ewww.
So how is Spock different? For one, Spock actively crawls blog sites, Linkedin and XING, and other web properties, looking for relevant user information. The Spock site then creates pages for each person it locates, and it allows other Spock users to contribute additional information and vote on what should be considered relevant of the existing information. Spock users can tag other users’ pages, add pictures, and web links to improve the indexes. If you’ve got any type of blog or social networking site, chances are that Spock already has at least one page for you.
Another thing that Spock makes clear is that it is not a social networking tool. It aims to help users locate people, but it relies on the indexed information to put you in touch with that person. There is no way to “build up your Spock network.” The trust network that I mentioned earlier in the post seems to be a way invite “trusted” users to vote on the information that you’ve entered into your profile. I’m still learning how the trust network should be used, but it’s not used like in a typical social networking site.
All in all, Spock is an fascinating site that seems to be getting a renewed boost in traffic and interest. In fact, the Spock blog has several new posts in October alone. If you’d like to give it a try, leave me a comment below and I’ll send you an invitation. Check out my Spock page (I’ve tried to update it with all the Web 2.0 properties that I’m currently using) and help improve my information by tagging me as “smart”, “intelligent”, “brilliant” or whatever you feel is appropriate.
Enjoy.
Note you can find more information at the Spock entry at Wikipedia.
Topics: Web 2.0 |
November 12th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
Hi Michael - thanks for your post. I know you had a question about how the trust network should work. Please take a look at the link below to see where we are trying to go with the trust network. Would like to get your feedback on what you think of the feature.
http://groups.google.com/group/spock-power-users/browse_thread/thread/65bedf8cb777db6b?hl=en
November 12th, 2007 at 11:35 pm
@ Jay - thanks for visiting the site! I’ll check out the Google group to learn more about the Spock concept of a “trust network”. Even thought I’m not quite sure what the trust network means (at least not yet), you must be doing something right, because it’s getting your users more active, and that’s always a good thing.
Keep up the good work on the site! It looks great so far!
November 13th, 2007 at 3:18 am
Sorry for the bad messaging on the site about trust network. You can read more details on our group
http://groups.google.com/group/spock-power-users/browse_thread/thread/65bedf8cb777db6b
that is until we clear it up on Spock and make it obvious:)
December 2nd, 2007 at 2:02 am
So far Spock.com seems to work best when doing a search for famous people. It seems to lack the power of Googling people, when looking for your average Joe. It will be interesting to see how Spock.com comes together in the next few years as a genuine “people search” application.
December 2nd, 2007 at 9:23 am
@ People Finder - Spock does seem to do a good job with famous people, but it’s also useful when trying to find “average joes”, too. Part of the Spock value-add is that it allows you to find someone, even if they happen to have the same name as someone famous (say, if your friend’s name was Tom Cruise).
We’ll see if Spock continues to grow. I’ve been getting a steady stream of people wanting to connect with me on Spock, so it does appear that their community is growing. I’ve had a couple of great exchanges with Jay, one of the creators of Spock. I owe him a couple of follow ups, which I’ll post in another blog article soon.
By the way, your site http://www.skipease.com/ has a ton of great people finder tools, including Spock. Nice site!
Thanks,
Michael Lundberg
http://www.michaellundberg.com
January 8th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
[…] I couple of months ago, I posted about my renewed interest in Spock after receiving several emails from other Spock users requesting to add me to their trust and search networks. My article also compared Spock’s people searching tools to some other sites such as Spoke and Jigsaw, who are similar, but ultimately have a different audience and goal than Spock. You can find that article here. […]
March 17th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
Hi Michael,
As a member of Spoke responsible for the brand I’m curious to know as a sales person why you get the feeling of “Ewww” when thinking about Spoke, in particular the Toolbar?
I’m an ex-sales person myself which is how I found, and came to be part of, Spoke. The aggregation of e-mail traffic between Spoke members is a scientific approach to creating professional networks by using actual business communications as the methodology for determining one’s network. While I can understand that a sales person wants to protect their contacts, Spoke provides just that level of security and privacy by using this approach instead of “invites.”
I’m an advocate for all different types of social and professioanl networking sites. I think each has a niche and fulfills a need. However I revert to my original question in trying to understand why you would be in favor of, and participate in, a service which crawls different network sites to aggregate information into one place but be offset by another service which performs similar activites but keeps one’s contacts private?
Again, I’m curious to know how you formulated that perception.
Thanks,
John
P.S.- Membership to Spoke is free, so why not come check us out (www.spoke.com)? And if you have other questions you’d like to discuss I’m available
March 17th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
P.P.S- Forgot to mention that installation of the Toolbar is optional for membership to the service, not required.
May 5th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
@ John - I apologize for being slow to respond. I’ve been rather neglectful of my blog lately.
I think you bring up some good points, and I’ve actually used Spoke on occasion, I just haven’t installed the toolbar. As you note in your follow-up, installation of the toolbar is optional.
My first impression of the toolbar was that it “farms” email contacts from your email activity. From the information on the Spoke website, it doesn’t appear that you can choose what “farmed” personal contact is made searchable to other Spoke members. As a sales person, my personal contacts or “black book” is part of my edge over competitors. I’m often fiercely protective of my contacts and I prefer to keep them private. For me, it seems the best way to do that is to not install the toolbar. If my understanding of the toolbar is incorrect - please let me know.
On the other hand, for users who put their public information out on the web - for example, in web postings, blogs, or public emails lists - I don’t feel bad about web crawlers cataloging and making that data searchable. In my mind, if you care about your public data, then don’t use it in a public forum where others can find it. That’s how I can rationalize Google, Spock, and similar services on the web.
Aside from the toolbar, I have no qualms about Spoke or the service it provides. In fact, I have found the tools useful and Spoke certainly fills a gap that is not current met by other services.
I hope that clarifies things, but I welcome your comments.
Michael Lundberg
http://www.michaellundberg.com