Xing releases new features, in challenge to LinkedIn
Two days ago, we reported that LinkedIn had finally added profile pictures to their features list. Now a competitor, Xing, is announcing a slew of new features.
Xing already had profile images. Its users will now have the ability to include more personal information on their profiles, including details about past positions, and a field showing their motivation for being listed on the service (e.g., to find new clients or jobs).
The service is also opening up… Continue Reading
The rush to people search: Viadeo, ZoomInfo, Yahoo China, Spock…and PeekYou
For years, technology to search for people has been neglected, compared to most parts of the Web. Until now, that is.
A wave of new entrants are making it much easier to find out everything about a person, from their job, to their personalities, their age and even where they live. Forget the privacy implications, the race is on.
LinkedIn, a social network for professionals, had the field to itself a few years ago. Sites like Friendster… Continue Reading
People search engine Spock launches
Spock, the Redwood City, Calif. search engine for people, launches tomorrow after a year of suspense.
It has remained secretive for months (see our original coverage), testing its engine, adding some 100,000 profiles and inserting other social networking features. In those past stories, we showed examples of how profile pages of people contain all sorts of information about people.
We asked chief exec Jaideep Singh how he plans to make money. He said the company will serve… Continue Reading
Creating a killer team
Looking at the rain outside my posh Sand Hill office, my co-founder Jay Bhatti and I wondered how we could assemble the right team to build the company we had envisioned. Every entrepreneur confronts this challenge. The vision, in my opinion, is the easy part. Getting it done is a lot harder. My experience in venture capital had taught me first-hand that building a market leading company requires a great team and a great company… Continue Reading
People search engine, Spock, two months away
Spock, the secretive people search engine getting ready to launch in two months, showed another demo to VentureBeat last week.
It has shown improvements from last year, when we first got a look. The company also just announced the “Spock challenge,” a competition that rewards $50,000 to the team that best identifies individuals referred to in a set of 100,000 documents selected by Spock. This is designed to help Spock find new ways to distinguish between… Continue Reading
People search engine Spock raises $7M, to launch next year
Spock, the Menlo Park start-up that wants to provide a definitive search engine focused on people, has raised $7 million in a first round of VC funding from Clearstone and Opus Capital Ventures.
VentureBeat reviewed the secretive company here, after getting a demo. It wouldn’t allow VentureBeat to publish screenshots, for fear of alerting competition. Ucloo in China is gunning for the same market, though Ucloo is focused on Asia for now.
Previously, Spock raised an… Continue Reading
Ucloo, the worrisome Chinese people search engine
Updated
So which Silicon Valley venture firm will dare touch Ucloo?
Ucloo is a year-old Chinese people search engine, and there are many things not to like about this site. First, check out the logo. What does it remind you of? At least they switched the colors of the first three letters (it is red/yellow/blue, instead of blue/red/yellow). See the page comparisons below, with Google, and with Baidu.
Chief executive Randy Ding tells VentureBeat that Ucloo has already… Continue Reading
Spock offers an ambitious “people” search engine
Updated
Spock, a secretive Menlo Park start-up incubated with $1 million from Clearstone Venture Partners, will unveil a search engine for people by the end of the year.
From a demo we’ve seen, we think it could be a powerful addition. Spock could take this in some interesting directions. Its main challenge will be to wean users from Google as a first stop, though more on that in a sec.
When Spock launches, it will have 100 million… Continue Reading
Roundup: 37Signals, MetroFi, CaliSolar & Duffield’s taxes…and more
37signals, the jazzy Web 2.0 company, takes funding from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos — See the company’s announcement here about why. We last mentioned the company here. The company boasts: Since we launched Basecamp we’ve been contacted by nearly 30 different VC firms. We’ve never been interested in the typical traditional VC deal. With a few exceptions, all the VCs could offer us was cash and connections. We’re fine on both of those fronts. We don’t… Continue Reading