It's been a while since I've blogged, I know, and I keep giving excuses, but I'm going to really try and be more regular in the coming weeks.  Today I'd like to talk about a search engine which I've recently had the opportunity to play with called Spock.com.  Yes, like the Vulcan, and no, I'm don't really like Star Trek much, but I do know about the ears. 

Spock is really quite a unique search engine as it's designed for locating information on people.  YES I said PEOPLE.  What's truly remarkable though is the simple fact that it's designed to ignore duplicates and searches all sorts of networking sites!  Now it's not all positive so I guess I'll sift through some of the pros and cons.

Pros:

• Duplicate Filter
  Let's say for example you ran a search for "Bill Gates" in Google.  You return 61 million hits, most of which are about the CEO of Microsoft.  Now lets try with Spock; 686 results, with a few duplicates, but not that many. 
• Networking Site Search
  Granted, Google and other SE are capable of searching networking sites like LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook, Friendster, etc...  Spock makes it a priority and when it makes the connection, it provides a sub list of links to their networking pages.  Instead of having one result per networking site, you get 1 result per person with several sub sites attached.
• Photos
  Yes, Photos.  If and when an individual is identified by photo, it's added to the result.  So not only are you getting their networking pages, you're also getting a photo for visual recognition right next to the result!
• Favorites
  There is a little icon next to the result and if it's a result that is to your liking, just click the little star and that individual is added to your favorites list.  So let's say you're looking for computer programmers and you find one in your area that you happen to have an interest in, maybe not for any current openings, but for future, just bookmark it! 
• Related People
  Spock also serves as kind of a networking agent unto itself.  If you find yourself and you find someone you're related to, you can mark them and then whenever either of you come up in search you'll be connected.  Pretty neat huh?
• Tags
  You have the ability to add tags to a person or yourself.  By tags I mean little bits of interest that may connect you to others, such as: "recruiter" or "new york" or "technology" or "single" etc... 

Cons:

• Beta
  The site is still in beta testing and you have to request an invitation to try it out.  Not a big flaw and they respond with invitations relatively quickly. 
• Tag Search
  The search is kind of weak when it comes to searching for specific skill sets, job titles, and general points of interest.  Because the search is based on the tags associated with people, you miss a LOT.  It's still in beta so I'll forgive them, but I don't see too many work arounds, at least until the site builds up momentum. 
• Adding Relations
  The add relations feature is great, but the problem is that if you have 10 people with the same name and no pictures to go with them, than you have to try them all out until you find the right one.  Kind of a bothersome task.
• Ownership
  If someone comes along and decides that they're someone already on Spock that the Spock spider picked up, than they own that name and can slander and attach all sorts of inappropriate tags.  I'm not sure on how Spock Admin deals with this issue, but I'd imagine they much have some form of punishment as this is technically like identity theft. 
• Privacy
  If someone adds you even though you don't want to be on the site, you're on.  I'm not all too clear on how to delete yourself, especially if someone has already claimed ownership to being you, or how you'd claim ownership without an invite at this point, but it's a little too open I feel and some may consider it a privacy issue.  Again, I'm sure Spock has procedure when dealing with these situations, I just haven't followed up yet. 

Those are some of the major pros and cons I've found, but I'd love to hear more.  If you've got yourself and invite and have some experience, please leave comments.  If you don't have an invite, I'd highly suggest getting one though because although it's got some issues, I think it will prove to be an incredibly valuable commodity.  It's similar to a young ZoomInfo with some neat little twists and turns which let it stand out. 

Happy Searching^^