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I’m not so sure about Spock: The next Riya?

TechCrunch’s Nick G. sums things up well:

Spock is certainly fun, and encourages user interaction by adding and voting on descriptive tags. It could easily become a definitive source of information about people. It will, however, likely take a massive number of page views to properly monetize the product - people searches do not generate the kind of advertising rates that ecommerce and other searches command. [from TechCrunch]

That’s it in a nutshell. Its fun, in a curiosity sort of way. In a click-around-for-a-minute-and-see-if-I’m-in-there sort of way. In a “not likely to return” sort of way. Spock may have all sorts of interesting semantic technology under the hood, but to me, its the next Riya: a cool technology flailing around for a need to serve. As Riya demonstrated, cool tech doesn’t even guarantee you an IP acquisition if it doesn’t serve some fundamental need.

And there’s the problem. It seems to me that people search is a fundamentally niche market. While 30% of search volume may be people related, how much of that volume is monetizeable, and does Spock add enough marginal value to grab any of it? People search has a number of unique characteristics that make it less suited to a vertical, than say, gadget searching - consider some of the basic use cases:

1. Vanity Search: Spock may provide an adequate solution for “vanity searches” (searching for yourself), but (a) how much marginal benefit does it provide over Google, and (b) how monetizeable is it?
2. Mainstream Culture Searches: What’s new with Britney? People apparently care. But Spock isn’t a news portal, or a gossip blog like TMZ or whathaveyou. Anyone searching for “Britney” likely knows here bio inside out already; I don’t see Spock having much marginal benefit here.
3. Finding People for Social or Business Networking: LinkedIn & Facebook & MySpace, etc: Is Spock aiming to compete with these juggernauts? Actually, judging from the descriptions of social networking features on Spock, it seems that they are. To me, this seems like a tacit admission that the core proposition of people search lacks significant marginal value over and above Google or Yahoo; “now with social networking” often seems like a desperation garnish added to jazz up a concept that lacks merit in and of itself.

So - from my lofty perch, I look down and see Spock as floundering out of the gate. A “definitive source of information about people” - is this something that folks are clamoring for? A way to get in touch with people - certainly (see: Facebook). A way to find people’s websites - Ok (see: Google). A way to find news about people - fine (see: blog search). Is there any value to be gained by aggregating these together into a definitive source? To me: doubtful. The tacked on social networking features & questionable widgets (I can write my own bio, thanks) reinforce this feeling.

A cool technology demo != a sustainable business.

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