Google's forte has been normalizing disparate information that didnt
necessarily intend to be found. the peopleweb will be much more about
people wanting to be found. if people choose to semantically organize,
then the act of aggregating them and sorting relevance will be a
trivial task, quickly commoditized and performed by any service.
Strangely, I stumbled across this headline from the San Jose Mercury News via JD Lasica: "A cross between Netflix and Napster ... It's Peerflix".
(I find it amazing that parallel thoughts somehow emerge from the sea
of interesting stories and events happening every day.) Peerflix
members shop for DVD's and trade them amongst other members.
Peerflix collects a transaction fee, but the trade then happens between
the buyer and seller.Peerflix facilitates the trading with its
Web site and a sophisticated e-mail alert system. Users publish
``want'' and ``have'' lists on the site, and the company tries to find
matches. Users pay Peerflix 99 cents each time they acquire a movie
from another user. There are no monthly fees or costs to join.
The role of the new media company, in my mind, is to connect people via a trusted environment. The connection might be information exchange like Slashdot. It might be transactions like Craiglist. As the PeopleWeb builds itself, the opportunities to facilitate those connections increases. And the guys at Peerflix have demonstrated yet another brilliant way to enable a network of conversations. Well done, Peerflix!
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