andStartup

PeekYou.com - The Smartest People Search Online

Let’s talk about bizarre concepts that border creepy.  PeekYou.com is a search engine explicitly for finding people.  There are already a lot of “find this person” websites, but PeekYou takes it to an entirely different level.  They search all of the existing social networking sites like LinkedIn, MySpace and also several whitepages sites for information about a specific person.  If the information is inaccurate or missing, people can fill it in and create their own PeekYou profiles.  It really is kind of creepy to have all of that data in one place.  When Google Maps first came out, many people said it was eerie even though Google contended that the information was freely available anyway.  PeekYou may be in that same space.

PeekYou gives detailed information, as available.  In certain cases it just reveals the person’s name and city/state.  In other cases it gives a home telephone number (based on various white pages websites).  It even gives links to social networking profiles where appropriate and in even rarer cases.. a picture!

What’s the concept?

Patent Pending search engine technology for finding people.

Why should you care?

It’s always good to know what’s out there about you and also good to be able to search for other people.

How do they make money?

They don’t… yet.

Will this company last 5 years?

I doubt it unless they truly have some awesome technology under the hood.  The level of complexity in the web is immense when it comes to identifying people.

Suggestions for improvements?

Maybe a timeline feature so we can see a person’s history?