Introduction

I have been asked by Spock.com - A Great Place for Search, to have a look at their site and provide my thoughts on it. Before we get into that, here is how Spock describes themselves:

Spock is a free people and information search engine. People can be searched by name or by a “tag” consisting of a personal piece of information (e.g. Real Estate Agent, blind, curly hair, etc). These tags can be created by the person, or by other Spock members. Opinions can be voiced about a person by voting for or against a tag (this includes pictures as well). Although we’re not a social network we do have some capabilities such as messaging. Within a search result are links to a person’s other locations on the web (e.g. MySpace, Wikipedia, LinkedIn, blog, etc). In addition we released a Trust Network which allows you to personalize your search so that any Spock connection you have will show up first-even if it’s your friends, friends, friends (ie if you searched for Physicist- rather than Isaac Newton being the first result, your friend would).

The Site

At first I was skeptical, but once I started playing around with the site I found that I was having some fun on it. For example, I did a search on myself and found a bunch of other people with my name, including what they looked like. I also did a search for the term drunk driving and it brought up a whole host of people who have been charged with drunk driving, such as Paris Hilton and Mel Gibson.

The main search page is very clean, almost Google like with just a quick description of what the site is all about and a search box. You can enter in a name, keyword, or location to find people and once you do a page comes up with various people related to your search. It is not a people finder, but rather a people aggregator.

Summary

Overall the site seems pretty cool. It does have a bit of a gossipy feel to it with the Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan results, but that is what is out there. Give this a try - you will have some fun while you do it.