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Search By.... Email?
cjjjer writes "The Register has a article on Yelp, the newest local search engine based on your local friends and businesses. Robert X. Cringely over at I, Cringely has another take on this new type of service as well. Seems to me a service like this will only generate a lot of useless emails that will go un-answered. Wait a minute, that sounds a lot like spam."
Try, just try to do something without bugging another sentient.
With the cyberthalamus, the singularity will happen.
And their page uses really sucky JavaScript; have they ever heard of using plain old hyperlinks rather than using javascript to open a popup window? It would make their site much more friendly to---irony coming---search engines. Real search engines.
So I get ads from my friends, and only my friends, so If I'm looking for a new place to do something, tough luck? Seems kinda odd....
Video Production Support
Or the best dry cleaner?
Or whatever...
There's always going to be someone who uses Yelp! 10 times a day and annoys you to no end.
It happens already: go take a look in any live journal community.
This just screams "give me valid email addresses so I can sell them to spammers!" This service is retarded, just use your email client.
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But if I want to ask all my friends a question, why can't I just send a group e-mail? If I need a recommendation, why wouldn't I just go to one of the myriad of review websites out there? I realize that a lot of successful businesses started by scratching an itch you didn't know you had, but I don't think there is going to be a particular demand for this one. If people are already capable of easily answering these questions, where is the incentive to change?
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
So you can have not only your friends asking you stupid question, you can have THEIR friends asking you stupid questions, and their friends' friends, and their friends's friends' friends, and so on.
This sounds like a really dumb idea. I don't mind answering the occasional question for someone I actually know and like, but this thing sounds like asking me to play tech support (or google) for a bunch of people my friends know, but I may not know, or even worse may know but not like.
This is a solution without a problem. Finding most information on the net can be done much faster, more accurately, and with no chance of pissing off some random friend of a friend of a friend, with an ordinary search engine.
It will probably become quite effective once the useage gets high.
That usage factor is going to be very interesting, because in order for their system to works there needs to be an answer to every question asked, and to work well many answers per question.
But where exactly are the answers going to come from since there's no direction reward for answering? There needs to be some sort of rule or incentive protecting the question-to-answer ratio, otherwise this system could colapse with piles of unanswered questions.
Here's my problem with Yelp! from a local search perspective. Most of the "friends" that I email with are nowhere near me, the people who are I actually talk to in person or on the phone.
Emailing my circle of friends in the UK, Japan, Germany, etc. isn't going to get me a good recommendation on a New York dry cleaners.
John.
lets see spam is properly termed as UCE so..
Unsolicited ? check
Commercial ? check
Email ? check
so yes as the recipient didnt request it it would be correctly identified as UCE aka Spam
Alice wants to know about hair stylists. ...
Bob wants to know about fishing sites.
Charlie wants to know about CD's.
Dave wants to know about guitars.
Ethel wants to know about concerts.
Frank wants to know about Volvo repairs.
Gary wants to know about Vegas.
Heidi wants to know about gyms.
Zak wants to know about legos.
And that's just on Monday.
If I thought my friends knew the answer to my question I would have already emailed/phoned them directly. I don't think I need a third party to yelp at them, and otherwise annoy them.
Now imagine responding to a zillion such mails from friends of friends of friends....
enjoy your sanity while it lasts.
See that long UID - that's what you get for lurking too long
I suppose it's perfectly in keeping with the terribly-written article on The Register that we're offered snide opinion on something here without having even been told what it is. (And worse, misled that this is some kind of search engine.)
The perfect sociological solution, from the spammer's view, to the address collection problem. Sure, the internet user hides his or her email address. Sure, they put on all kinds of technical blocks. Sure, they're wary and won't stupidly write their email address into any form that asks for it.
But they will give their email address to their mom, and their mom WILL type it into that form.
What makes this something that I couldn't do with email sent the old-fashioned way(or a cell phone) and local.google.com, map quest, or some other service?
SIGFAULT
OK - so let's say I ask about the best $whatever in my area and lots folks reply that it's $smallbiz. Now, suppose this 'popularity' sends a hord of customers to $smallbiz overwhelming their ability to produce their product and their service/product is no longer the quality it once was. $smallbiz owner might be happy and might not be. Loyal customers may or may not be happy too since they no longer get the same quality of product or service they have been accustomed to. Dissatisfied customers will no longer recommend the business. Could this be an unforseen consequence?