Brownbook directory lets you get in on the action

Brownbook, a global business directory that allows users to edit information about companies, launched recently for visitors all over the world.

According to the company, Brownbook aims to combine the power of wikis, peer production, and social networking to change the way business directories are presented online. Instead of providing a directory for users, Brownbook allows users to edit and update business listings, provide reviews with video and photos, and receive rewards by commenting on businesses.

The premise sounds simple enough and some may think it's interesting, but after using it for a while, I'm not quite sold on its usefulness. I perused the site, looked for different companies, read reviews scattered across the service, and found myself asking the same question each time: what value does this site really provide?

It's not that a business directory isn't nice, but there are a slew of them across the Web, like Yellowpages.com and Yahoo's business directory, which present pertinent information in a much nicer package.

Brownbook claims that over 27 million businesses have already been indexed. But when I searched for a major firm like Wal-Mart, the site returned a results page that listed Canadian stores and their phone numbers, but little else. That may be fine for Canadian customers who want to know a particular store's phone number, but the rest of the world is left out. And after viewing incomplete information about each store, I quickly realized that it's much easier to use Wal-Mart's store locator to find important information instead of Brownbook.

Being able to add a business and comment on that business is the real draw of Brownbook. But after searching through the site for quite some time without finding any useful review, I can't help but wonder if people are willing to review a major accounting firm or Ford dealership like they review hotels on TripAdvisor or restaurants on Yelp. I doubt it.

That said, adding a review was made simple by clicking the "Add a review" link and changing or adding information about a particular company is as easy as filling out a form and confirming the changes. That simplicity was welcome and could help the company grow as more people learn about the site.

But at its core, Brownbook is a directory site and so far, I just don't see any reason to use it as such. The idea of having a place to find important information about a particular company or franchise like mailing address, phone number, and location is fine, but with other services across the Web that present that information in a much cleaner way, I don't see a reason to use the site. And considering Brownbook is inherently subject to angry customers and bias, I'm not convinced the site can become a trusted source of important business information.

[Marc-Lyne]

Hi Don,

I am one of the Brownbook founders?

Thanks for writing about us.

When we launched Brownbook earlier this year, we took the decision to give the site ?utility? by seeding 27 million businesses (US, UK, Canada and Australia), and now thousands of businesses are being added by users every week. Unique visitors to the site are increasing at a rate >10% week on week. Because anyone can add, edit and review any business instantly, the data is getting better every day.

We are also a platform for all those businesses that never reach traditional directories, the long tail of businesses e.g. the dog walkers, gardeners, baby sitters, those moonlighting outside of their day jobs?

A few weeks ago we launched ?user earnings?. This is where people who contribute to Brownbook are rewarded with a 20% lifetime share of brownbook revenue? here is a video that explains it:

http://blog.brownbook.net/2008/10/23/we-are-going-to-pay-you-a-lifetime-share-of-all-brownbook-revenue/

Thanks again.

Marc.

[WeCanDoBIZ]

An interesting review. There is little doubt that business search is due an overhaul, but any new leader in this space is going to need to show the sort of enormous value that will stop people going to TripAdvisor for hotels, Yelp for restaurants etc. It will also need to cover B2B companies properly, which few such sites do. I also don't think search will serve us well enough in the future, because the results are too easy to corrupt. Much more relevant is an individual "being found" by service providers -- they enter what they need and the guys who can provide it come to them with 100% relevant answers. We are trialing such a concept with the Biz Need feature on our site currently, encouraging business professionals to enter their most urgent business need, which we then match to listed companies and send them a prompt to contact the person with the need. It's working well with B2B needs and companies.

For a directory listing to displace the encumbents it is going to need to move the game on significantly. I can't see this happening yet, but the possibilities of semantic search are exciting.

By the way, I am unsure where the social networking elements of Brownpages are...?

Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz

[davidingram]

Hi Don, may I point out a few extra things... my guess is, if you only got results from Canada your country was set to canada or 'global'. You see the flags top right. If in 'global' i see the canadian resulst come up first, but my guess is you didnt notice the 'filter by country' flags at the head of the search results (feedback is - thsi should probably be more obvious).
Fair point re looking for a walmart store, and I would do the same as would most people i guess, but the usefulness is when you dont know that you want Walmart, you just know you need an attorney, accountant, etc in a particular area.

[davidingram]

Hi Ian, the social elements are the transparency around the contributors. When you make a contribution I can see what other contributions you've made, and thus I can get a 'feel' for how credible your input is. For example, a review by a user that has made only one contribution may get less credibility in my mind than a reviewer that has a dozen or more. Its not an exact science, but comes down to subjective human judgement, just like in the real world.

[flickd]

Great review Don..

I think brownbook has stumbled onto something, but as you point out (in not so many words) they have their work cut out for them. But I do see the need for a service that allows one to review major firms and organizations; rather than just local mom and pop firms around the world. Where they have fallen short is not looking a little more closely at how people really work. Yelp, yellowpages and other services in this space work fine...its the having to go to many places to post a review that most people avoid.