People2Meet – an interesting concept in People search Engine

People2Meet is an interesting service that aims to build people search portal for the Indian market.

What I like about People2Meet is their approach towards building the people search service in India. Instead of a pure people search (i.e. search by name), what People2Meet is also trying is to build an expertise based database.

So for e.g. if you are a Product Management expert, you will be tagged as a PM and any search for PM should find you.

I had a word with Vish of People2Meet and this is what he has to say on his future plans:

The majority of the database now comes from scraping information. So we are trying to index people across a range of categories and the idea is to cover as much as relevantly possible from category A to Z in a phased manner.

The idea is really to be a people search portal and if that presents an environment for a ‘social net’ eco-system to take hold then it will indeed provide more (online/offline) opportunities for the end-user and therefore is very much welcome.

Though People2Meet is still in early stage (and has a long way to go), here is what I expect from an India specific people search engine:

  • Start scraping sites like LinkedIn, Orkut/Facebook (and other socio nets), Job sites like Naukri/Times etc.
  • Go for deep web search and extract profiles from directories like Amazon,baazee, mouthshut, news items, publications etc.
  • Build a relevancy algorithm which basically takes care of an indiviaual’s expertise (extract info from job sites + LinkedIn+ web publications+ blogs]
  • Categorize services based on an individual’s interest- -
    • Professional expertise
    • Hobby
    • Dating
    • Other services, etc.

Though there are US-centric products like Spock, Pipl (my fav), except for Pipl and maybe, Peekyou, I did not get ANY relevant results as far as the Indian searches are concerned (I searched for Amitabh Bachchan!!).

Give People2Meet a spin and please share your feedback/comments.

What do you think of an India based people search engine? What’s the right approach for the Indian market?

Related: Reliance’s Chintee -people search engine?

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  • comment(s) on People2Meet – an interesting concept in People search Engine

    11 Responses to People2Meet – an interesting concept in People search Engine

    1. Ravi says:

      Interesting idea..I expect this domain to grow in the coming years..as more Indians start using the Internet.

    2. Ramjee says:

      Interesting but at this point people2 meet is in a very rudimentary stage and a long long way to go.

      Coming to the people search space specific to india.
      One more thing i want to add is the credibility. (It’s a bit controversial). It will help to know how credible the person is and his track record.

    3. Pranz says:

      I have been a follower of this site for quite sometime now…Think it can go a long way…keep a tab..

      Speaking about his track record[choti mu badi baat]…well i can say the person is fresh with ideas and is best in giving solutions for even the complex things…

      Pranz

    4. Vish says:

      Thank you Ashish.
      I would like to add that the plan is not so much a people search engine as it is a people search portal.

      Also, anyone interested in contributing or helping in any manner that will advance the cause is very much welcome to contact me.

      - Vish
      people2meet.com

    5. Rupert Schiessl says:

      Hi Ashish!

      I tried out people2meet.com with my own name and I didn’t get any results as they are certainly using internal databases.

      I’m using Ziki to make myself visible on the web. Ziki is a fast growing community(of about 14k members by now). They use an extremely innovative concept: when you become a Ziki member you can chose to get your name placed on the first line of a Google research on your name for free which is very interesting, for instance, for your job research.

      cu

      Rupert

    6. Vish says:

      Rupert, I find Ziki very innovative myself.

      My plan is much less ambitious and i do not intend to index all the 6B people on this planet:)
      We have just started and the focus is restricted to India.

      thanks
      - Vish
      people2meet.com

    7. Kousikee Bhattacharya says:

      just search

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    9. Munim says:

      Scraping data from other social networks? hmm..
      Privacy? What if I don’t want my profile to be added in people2meet?

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    11. Vijay says:

      Check out http://www.kittipoi.com . It is very similar to this one, scraping and indexing people profiles from across the globe.