Tinfinger is a people search engine. Just type in the name of a famous person and get some information on them. I was initially impressed, because there was some useful information about Tara Brabazon who is in the news at the moment for her stance on Google. It has several advanced search features that allow you to find out opinions on people, with pictures, works that they have authored and so on. There's a directory with 650 categories. It gives you the opportunity to get nearest name matches in different categories. When you find a person you can submit your own profile, and/or your own opinion.
So, seems pretty good so far doesn't it? Ah, but you're ahead of me aren't you... the fly in the ointment is the actual content. It's odd. It would win the oddest thing in the mad odd things of Oddville competition. Let me introduce you to the profile for Gordon Brown, our Prime Minister.
Brown has the name of The Rt Hon Dr Gordon Brown. Brown has the national of United Kingdom. Brown has the type of Academics of the Open University. Brown has the title of Chancellor of the Exchequer. Brown has the years of 1983–2005. Brown has the before of "(none: constituency created)". Brown has the after of "constituency abolished". Brown has the predecessor of Kenneth Clarke. Brown has the successor of Incumbent. Brown has the religion of Church of Scotland. Brown has the start of 1997. Brown has the party of Labour Party (UK). Brown has the spouse of Sarah Macaulay. Brown has the order of Chancellor of the Exchequer. Brown has the term start of 1997052. Brown has the constitution of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (UK Parliament constituency).
I could go on, but you have the idea. At least I hope you do. This has to be computer generated surely? It's not good. Other profiles are as bad if not worse. Some are a little better. However, I'm not impressed. On the other hand, to be fair, it is in beta, and beta starts tomorrow apparently. So it's day one and other search engines have fared worse on their first day. If it can pull its content around it might be usable. But quite frankly I'm not hopeful, but I'll drop back in 6 months and hope to be proved wrong.
You're right Phil, the tag stuff is pre-generated. It's not of very high quality as yet, I agree. The intention is for people to use that raw data to write full profiles, and earn money at the same time.
Posted by: Paul Montgomery | January 14, 2008 at 09:21 PM
Imagine meeting Tara at party:
you: So, what do you do?
Tara: I'm a professor of media studies
you: er, right - which university?
Tara: Don't laugh - Brighton
you: HAHAHAHAHAHA! (chokes on cocktail sausage)
Posted by: Andrew | January 15, 2008 at 05:09 AM