PeopleJar, a startup that hopes to help users with similar interests connect using a highly-customizable search engine, has soft launched to the public.
The site is very well done, sporting a clean and intuitive interface, an exhaustively customizable search engine, and generally high production values. After creating a detailed profile that includes information on their education, country of origin, and interests, users can browse through a number of Networks ranging from Science and Technology to Yoga. Each Network behaves much like a Facebook Group, allowing users to post public messages to a Wall, and connect with other members of the same group.
The site’s most powerful feature is its robust search function, which allows users to search for others using many criteria. After creating a search, users can choose to have the site persistently monitor for any matches in the future.
PeopleJar’s biggest difficulty will lie in establishing a sizable user base differentiating itself from countless other social networking sites that mimic nearly the same functionality. While other networks like Facebook or LinkedIn may not have the same persistent customizable searches, they already have millions of users. Many of PeopleJar’s features rely on having a sizable user base - the complex searches won’t be any good unless they actually have someone to find.
it is good. google does all, so there are a lots of chances for others to do their niche.~~~
It is good, Website
welcome to http://www.it4j.com
The future of search is user generated and social.
What is the innovation here? Putting people automatically in different groups based on profile is not ground breaking technology.
It seems like good old yahoo groups, trend facebook groups with different name
Agree. I just wrote on this. PeopleJar needs to realize how difficult it is to build a stand alone business, let alone one that is trying to draw users away from competitors with one superior feature. Saw a lot of that this past week at the TC 50 Conference where people have too high of aspirations, with too little to offer.
-jason (tinycrunch)
I think you guys are missing the point. This site doesn’t seem like it’s trying to draw people away from Facebook or Myspace.
The site is more of a complement to existing social network sites in that it tackles the ability to find people based on certain characteristics. From what I understand of PeopleJar, it’s more so to make the initial connection rather than maintaining the connection.
I think the site can do well if it gets enough users. It is, like someone else mention, a classic chicken and egg problem.
agree with you, another “facebook social network clone”
Agree. Old hat and boring. But thanks for the update.
FB v.1.0ish. Good luck playing catch up to FB!
Seems like there is only one network for each topic - better than 1000 different cycling groups in Facebook.
they are blocking to see profile, it is not good as good http://www.hiadults.com feature. people view profile without login in or sign up.
Your site makes me want to hurl.
What a horrible, horrible name.
agree. don’t try and succeed despite your name, let your name help!
That logo doesn’t help much either.
I think the site is great. It is not a social network like the traditional ones out there. This is more of a search tool. You can use it to connect to any type of person. One example would be If you need to find a runner to run with in a different state or part of the world, you can go to this site and find one. It is a free site. The public can add categories on the fly. I believe this is the only site with all of its capabilities on the Internet. I suggest watching the short video on the landing page. It does a great job of explaining what the site does.
not a lot going for this site. horrible name, horrible site, 5 dudes that have no experience and to top that off trying to compete with facebook and other social networks at this stage of the game? Clueless jar.
Interesting concepts. People search by wiki grown characteristics. I don’t see it as a facebook competitor. Facebook doesn’t do much search. People don’t make new friends there. May make roommates.com-type search sites concerned, as PeopleJar seems to focus on making new connections. Simple concept, well done. Good luck getting the people to search through thou.
another facebook wannabe I guess
FAIL. Same old story - investors get screwed once more.
Just good features won’t do – you need a critical number of users to provide a benefit. Until then it is the old chicken-eggish challenge.
That was lame.
How does stuff like this get profile on TC?
There’s no innovation here. No experienced team. Nothing interesting at all.
And what a horrible name.
How in the world does this get coverage on TechCrunch?? Is this 2 guys in a dorm room that decided to do ANOTHER social network?? This has zero legs - No revenue model. FAIL.
I also use zigime.com It is my favorite. I really like the look of the site. It looks very professional and the community is very friendly.
I like their approach. No bells and whistles application to connect people through innovative approach to advanced search. Looks like the solution to finding people is in the concept and architecture instead of high end technology. I like their wiki approach to content: networks are user contributed, like wikipedia – no duplicate articles on the same topic. Myspace and Facebook have thousands of repetitive groups with no search within them. PeopleJar attribute system is robust and dynamic with network specific attributes. Looking for a runner – you can search for a sprinter or marathoner. In Filmmaking: for cinematographer or a stuntman. People can contribute network attributes for better detailed profiles. Good and simple tool to connect people in specific industries. I like their name and logo. Interesting story behind the company.
Hey Chris,
You are either someone from this failing startup trying desperately to increase the positive comments count, or just a complete ignoramus. No other way to explain your glowing comments.
This app is crap.
Tested the site. app is good, we like it. It has potential.
Hello. I’m Alex – the PeopleJar founder. Wanted to thank TechCrunch for giving PeopleJar coverage and this Opportunity to make a statement.
To clarify a few things:
Major one, on Positioning: PeopleJar is not a social networking application. It is a tool to be found and search. It is not meant to bring your existing relationships online. It’s goal is to help create new connections: social or professional for real life oriented needs. It is not much of a tool to maintaining that established connection either. Indeed, after such relationship is established, it may result into being somewhat social on PeopleJar networks, but it is not the main focus. There’s no goal to compete with Facebook, take their users, etc. As one of the comments stated right on: it is an application built to fill the void in the Internet that making a new connection today is still restricted and a micro-site owned industry, mostly membership fee driven. Why such microsites (all independently successful businesses in their categories be it dating or equestrian sports) to this day are able to get away with charging users fees, if searching for and connecting with people is resolved by Facebook & Myspace? These are 2 separate domains: social networking (existing friends) & microsites (new connections for sports, professional, hobbies, social reasons). And everyone keeps looking in the social networking direction, Still… Today: social networks are General, they are NOT industry specific. They do NOT do specific search connecting you to people. On LinkedIn you can search by these attributes: a person’s name, school name, company - only 3 more or less. The fact is: today, microsites own connecting new people and industry specific people search domain. It is sad to see the majority’s perception that Facebook is to develop it all and to fill all the voids, encouraging people to submit to the Matrix and take the blue pill:). As Mark Zuckerberg,founder of Facebook stated in his interview with the LA Times on October 7, 2007, “We’re not trying to help you make new friends online. We’re just trying to help you digitally map out the relationships you already have.” Maybe big boys will change their focus and start making new connections too, but they aren’t an answer to everything. Internet is still at its infancy. It’s nice of you to rip us compared to giants in social networking domain, but we’re “evolving microsites-up” type of application. Everything is relative.
On the Content: Our networks are dedicated to particular fields and its amateur to compare it to groups. We only allow one network per field, like Wikipedia only allows one article on a given topic. More importantly, if you look deeper: within each network there’s a set of attributes (also dynamically expandable by user contributions) that people in this field use to describe themselves by. So, if you are a model, attributes will be height, weight, skin color; if you are an aupair/nanny: perhaps a spoken language, driving ability, working experience with handicapped/autistic child, etc. Attributes are linked like this to related fields and are universally considered useful to connect with people in this network/industry by its audience. As stated in some comments: this is somewhat similar to eBay’s approach to products – when listing a car it asks you what year it is, what mileage is on it, etc.
From a couple of examples given above: what is “an establish new connection application”? When a family is looking for a nanny with that particular experience. It is to help connect for a job and go work for them, it is NOT for them to sit online and socialize about being an aupair and make wall posts about it. Same applies to a runner, a programmer, a drummer, filmmaker, etc. PeopleJar is not filled with social features, rather is focused on a simple core search/be found functionality. We don’t do wall posts and alike social functionalities as was pointed out. We may introduce additional features to help people connect and benefit the network to help people be found better. Some social features overlap on many sites, e.g. YouTube is not a social network, yet making comments, messaging a member is a common set of tools necessary for any site. Is video foundation a business or a feature? I see it as clearly defined business foundation…. PeopleJar’s nucleus is making new connections and being found through unique approach to expandable by users attribute-driven search. Perhaps you might end up finding your existing friend by last name or school or company name too, and somewhat socializing with them on PeopleJar, but this is a tangent.
Being an internal people search, it is vital for PeopleJar to have the audience base. eBay was built with no inventory to buy or sell either. It is also a common misconception about searching for people online to get instant results. For example, when you are company and looking to hire a software developer, you cast your line first: “I’m looking for Rails developer with 2 years of experience in Irvine, CA”. This action, is equally as important as getting your match. Tons of individuals and companies do this kind of “casting query” activity daily and paying for it. Be it looking for a runner in the area, aupair job, individual student filmmaking project, or a career search. It has little to do with social networking or being a Facebook wannabe. It’s an activity coming out of a need that is resolved with utilities. On social networks you can browse through thousands of repeated groups yet you cant event search by a Spoken Language. What PeopleJar should be compared to is tons of microsites like greataupair.com, onemodelplace.com, monster.com that (despite Myspace & Facebook) dominate connecting people fields on a tribal level. Like product sales microsites dominated more prior to eBay coming along.
I personally faced the lack of this solution many times on a global level in every field I looked into, whether it was being a foreigner coming to the US to study, getting a job or making a new sport friend in the area.
For some we’re perhaps yet another feature that has to be dealt with. And we’re proud to be the first to bring this to light. Many great things start small and meet a great resistance and negativity from amputated spirits who sit back criticize and never create anything.
Internet has brought me through a long path from a little hometown in Russia with a dream of one day being here with no means to do so. PeopleJar was brought to life with a sincere dream for me & the team to gift people across the world a tool make that path easier whatever their industry may be, wherever it is in the world.
We’re proud of every step taken. And there’s plenty more to go…
Thank you everyone for your input.
–
Alexander Alexandrov
Alex You are toast. Rich is too spread out and you need large funding …not band aids like Source capital. You have no chance to succeed if Rich maintains control!!!
Further ..you are a little kid with NO business experience and your principals have been fined for SECURITES FRAUD in their last deals…LOSINg their securities license.
GOOD LUCK
I’ve had a chance to meet–and work–with the PeopleJar team and their founder. I can say with first-hand knowledge that the level of vision and direction they have is unparalleled.
Any application that relies upon a sizable user base will require both time to grow and a dialogue with the community (one of which has been demonstrated here). PeopleJar is growing every day–a fact I know from a recently fixed bug
so it can only get better. They’ll need to maintain a great relationship with their community and integrate their service and search to gain popularity and succeed.
(I am not the same Chris who wrote the post with poor grammar above.)
Stop this silly banter. No one gives a rat’s ass about this app. Check out your post-TC hit logs if you don’t believe the comments posted here.
Move on and pitch new investors on your next social app idea du jour.
good work!!GOOD LUCK
Even though peoplejar is a bore - these replies are not! This company will be in the deadpool……
Just another facebook wanna be - Another CEO that is a Zuckerberg wanna be. And a waste of investors money. FAIL.
lmao, does anyone on this board have a single successful venture to be able to substantiate a comment? I will admit that I dont yet, but it’ s an interesting site to me.
You don’t have to have a successful venture to know that an App is useless or at least that you will never use it again.
Point taken, but you also do not have to have a successful venture to know that you would use an App again. I was just looking for valid comments. Too many worker bee comments, not enough queen bees. I admit that I am one of the many worker bees:)
I think alot of people just want to leave negative comments on something they wish they invented. I am an average joe from the Midwest and I think that this is a great idea. I wish I invented it. Good Luck, I will be using it.
Yeah, I’m one of them…..Oh, how I wish I invented this application that no one wants.
thumbs down.
Looks like the founder did not change his style of sending looooooooong mails. And expect everyone to read it.
What is the point of this website, when person in china cannot speak English and want to connect with American or Russian , still he is stuck in his own network of people. If I want to find a nanny or model I will use craigslist !
For sure the website is going to stay for a while, but when it SHUTS DOWN nobody is going to hear about it.
One way thinker. Dude, First, please work on your grammar. B, If you were a nanny or a model and wanted to market yourself for free, would you just market yourself in one place? Any nanny or model would want to market to as many people possible if they were looking for a job. . Three, If you only spoke Chinese and you wanted to connect with an American or Russian, you can find a person that speaks both languages. How the heck would that guy or girl be in your own network? D, Do some homework people, am I the only one that researched this that has made it out of the first grade? Five, Set the bar a little higher.
Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner (phrase coined by a “Chinese” person, not me)
Call themselves genius or losers.These guys don’t have ethics. I have seen them advertising on myspace profile, and wikipedia. Whatever they say is complete BS.The fact is this is another yahoo groups.
Looks like most of the positive posts are biased, Step into real world guys.
I read what the founder wrote above. Everyone should read it. Seems honest to me. Also seems like there are a lot of different views here. I watched the short intro video on the home page. It clarified a lot for me.
They should have forum like this http://www.a1forums.net
I PeopleJar will be succesfull social network..
http://planbiznes.ru
I think that PeopleJar will be succesfull social network.. *