So I had a crazy night last night. The type of night I have not had in a while (on a school night anyhow :) ). I was introduced to the Founder and CEO of Word Of Mouse and we had a really fun night. This post is not about sending love to someone simply because I like them. In fact, I was a little skeptical about the concept of this site when he pitched it to me as, it sounded like About.com meets Squidoo; boy was I wrong!
In his book The Search, John Battelle talks about the future of search lying (in part) in the verticalization of the search space. Many have taken this idea very literally and have created very rigid verticals that do not take a human approach (Kayak, Jobster etc.). While the value proposition of these sites is strong, I do not feel that the future of search lies solely in an algorithmic framework.
What Word Of Mouse does is create "human verticals" (that is not their terminology, I am not sure whether or not they would agree with me so, I want to clarify this fact) within geographic constraints. This adds value in two ways:
1. Specifity
2. Perspective
Algorithms do not take perspective into account and even if they could, whose perspective would it be? Word of Mouse gives you the profile of the guide you are searching "through" thus adding a human touch.
The site gives you the ability to choose someone who you may feel is similar to yourself and search through their lens (to steal a page from Squidoo). Or, you can search through the lens of someone you may never be (dare to live on the wild side).
I am going to give the site a B+ and a strong endorsement. The reason that I cannot give it an A is, no start up can get an A. A's only come through execution so, as the site matures, I am sure it will it will come closer to perfection. After talking to the CEO, I think he has the tools to pull this off.
Tags: Word Of Mouse, Search, The Search, John Battele, vertical search, lens, Squidoo, about.com
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