Wouldn’t you think a “localpedia” (a Wiki tied to a community) is a good idea? The domain is taken, or I would have registered it, but I wonder if Wikipedia will extend to this domain of locale, with the model of building a better yellow pages. In all honestly, that makes more sense than the idea of WikiNews.
What sparked this thought?
The January 27th CNET News.com article “Amazon search pictures your destination” was brief. The captivating point? Amazon combined photos and GPS and ingenuity to provide a yellow pages with real photos, at least for the 10 United States cities they tackled to start. The folks at A9 explain how they did it, and end with
We are driving and at some point hope to cover the whole country.
Here’s the thing: I’ll bet A9/Amazon hopes to cover the whole country even if they never drive another mile. I think it might have been part of the idea all along. All they had to do was make a splash with this new service (really, this new idea) and after they prime the pump, Amazon can encourage its customers to improve the service without driving another mile. I think Amazon is trying to kickstart Dan Bricklin’s cornucopia of the commons for a web view of a locale that is better than anything previously offered or envisioned. Of course, “the commons” remains within the Amazon.com universe in this model.
I don’t mean to discount the innovation here, or just how nifty the idea is. It combines several developments (broadband, digital cameras, GPS, endless storage, online business directories, peer-review systems, enlightened self-interest, etc.) and profits from their ubiquity in a manner which appears obvious once unveiled, but hadn’t occurred to anyone else yet… or at least anyone else with the oomph to make it a reality at enough of a scale to attract attention. (Am I missing something? Did someone else presage this entire category? Let me know.)
An example: Cup-A-Joe Coffee House, a few blocks from my house, doesn’t have a picture yet. Fruitful Grounds, which I prefer, didn’t even make their listings for “coffee” in 94117 ZIP code, though the local Starbucks did.
As you can see at the Cup-A-Joe page, Amazon encourages its audience to share its own images of the establishment, or add images if one exists. Ergo, no reason for Amazon to send its drivers back to the place they missed. Also, readers are encouraged to add to or correct the information presented, which evokes a Wiki for me… though all this information will live on A9/Amazon. Even it becomes part of the information available to others via the justly-praised Amazon APIs, it is still under corporate control. That’s not necessarily a problem, but if I replace Amazon with Axciom (from whom Amazon licenses some of the business directory, it seems), you might be less sanguine. (Tangent: I wonder if Amazon needs a license from Axciom in a few years, if this idea works.) But Amazon has treated its customers right, and hasn’t screwed up IMDB.com, among others. We’ll see.
Of course, those with the incentive to make sure their listings are accurate, attractive, and complete — the business owners themselves — are encouraged to “update and promote your business for free.” Amusing to me: the link goes to the same place as the non-owner link, and you self-identify your relationship with the business, whether customer, employee, manager, owner, etc. I wonder how they validate this information, or whether they will? I’d turn on the Amazon.com customer reviews process (it’s there, but not as a peer-review on the data), and let customers validate the information, once the easy-to-check-automatically information has been vetted. Maybe that’s already in place… hard to test without spending even more time on this than I already have. Anyway, it may be free to businesses now, but the “click to call” feature probably won’t in the future. Or maybe there is a better/different way to find money from the businesses who want to be seen by potential customers: the original Yellow Pages model.
Of course, I could be wrong on all of this. A9 is hiring drivers. But I think I’m right, even if their intentions are not so far-reaching, and my musings read way, way too much into their long-term goals.