Recall though that Project Napa was floated way back in 2000 - even before Wikipedia was founded (2001)! Wikipedia not only seems to make the "growing bio" concept somewhat obsolete (at least from a process standpoint -- Wikipedia makes no claim of course to building dossiers on a billion unremarkable nobodies), it also points to some of the shortcomings of the model of "non-authoritative" user-built databases.
Is PeekYou the next Wikipedia? MySpace meets something-I-haven't-thought-of? Or is it another Project Napa?
Today, so many of these startups are coming out and overlapping -- with MySpace and Facebook profiles, genealogy sites that seem to want to stretch their mandate ever further, and personal info shareable with all, etc. -- it becomes very easy to throw up your hands and say: why, exactly, should I believe this particular platform will ever create a database that will be reliable and comprehensive enough to bother with? And secondly -- why should I help build it?
Done right, these sites could be extremely useful, I suspect. Current versions in the marketplace are often no better than high-volume scrapers (I know my company info is on ZoomInfo, lifted from my website) monetizing with the usual AdSense and banner routine.
The tension between a single authoritative piece of information and the wisdom (or at least comprehensiveness) of crowds continues. Meanwhile, the beta of PeekYou.com sucks. I looked up a few friends, some of whom aren't exactly tough to find info on.
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