ZoomInfo Business Search Engine Truly Bites

One of the more important sources for the Media Biz 2.0 Thinktank blogfeed is John Blossom's ContentBlogger, a blog I've followed over the last few years to keep up with developments in online publishing.  I've learned a lot from Blossom but I was a bit surprised at his recent optimism regarding open web business search engine and database ZoomInfo.

Though Blossom does point out that the "accuracy of Web content mined by ZoomInfo has been questioned by some in the past", he feels that "new semantic processing software about to be launched along with a powerful new interface promises to kick up the quality."

Unfortunately, an initial analysis immediately showed that ZoomInfo's current search is easily outperformed by Google, a real problem for a niche information service.

For example, Zoominfo returns 5 initial web sources per search, once an individual or company has been identified.  John Blossom's first five at ZoomInfo look a lot weaker than the first five at Google.

But an even stronger example is that of Russell Simmons, whose profile at ZoomInfo returns web results that are incredibly weak and pathetic compared to results from Google.

Though ZoomInfo has other features that will strengthen it over the long run, the fact that their focus is on using the open web to profile businesses and business people means this weak performance brings their very reason for being into question [scratch that, we know what their rea$on for being is].  I'll check back when they roll out their new search engine but, given that they're taking on the even more difficult task of semantic search, I'm still doubting.  Then again, why not be optimistic when there's nowhere to go but up?

Update:
John Blossom from Shore Communications dropped by and made some telling points regarding the new and improved version. Bottom line, I stopped examining too soon to really give the full range of options a fair chance. As he points out in his follow up post, there are specific ways in which ZoomInfo achieves more targeted results than Google for certain searches. That alone suggests that ZoomInfo has great potential and I see why Mr. Blossom was getting so enthused.

However, I mistrust services that have really basic gaps.  In the previous version, the results for Donald Trump and Russell Simmons were weak.  In the new version, they're nonexistent in the name search.  That makes me wonder what other gaps exist.

Maybe this is really a reminder that search is similar to mobile phone service.  We love it cause we get something we didn't have.  We hate it cause the quality of service regularly disappoints.

In any case, I now look forward to the possibility of ZoomInfo becoming the service it truly wants to be cause that would be an awesome thing.

Comments

[John Blossom]

Hello,

Just noticed your post in a scan of Technorati, I wanted to clarify a few things regarding Zoominfo.

First, my statements in the post that you referenced were forward-looking. At the time that you were looking at Zoominfo its new release with improved processing had not gone live.

Secondly, I did post later on an initial review of the relaunched Zoominfo product, and it does show some limitations along with promise:
http://www.shore.com/commentary/weblogs/2007/04/test-drive-zoominfo-20-offers.html

Thirdly, I agree that Zoominfo is not Google. However, it's also true that Google is not trying to be a true business information service. Trying to compare Google and Zoominfo based solely on article search listings is a little like trying to compare doorknobs to doors - they're related functionally but with quite different innards. The improved semantic processing that I referenced in my initial post allows Zoominfo to de-duplicate entries and to create more relevant clustering of content around a company profile or a personal profile. While the Web page references in Zoominfo are reasonably useful, its what Zoominfo mines out of those references to create more fully formulated personal or corporate profiles that provides the real value from the product. So instead of looking at the Web page references on personal profiles try using the tool to find things like "flushometers" or other business oriented products: you get results quite different from a Google.

This is not to dispute your point about the strengths of Google for "Googling," but business information as a whole needs more structure than typically Googling provides. Look at the whole of a product, not just one feature.

All the best,
John Blossom
President
Shore Communications Inc.

[Clyde Smith]

That sounds good and the new version does seem to have some improvements but basically, the bottom line is I got more targeted results for both Russell Simmons and Donald Trump on Google than on the old ZoomInfo.

While I'd like to appreciate the bells and whistles, the fact that Russell Simmons and Donald Trump now don't even return any results at all from a name search makes me uninterested in add-ons.

If they can't get the most basic part right, then the advanced options won't be very helpful.

[Clyde Smith]

Ok, so I clicked through to your follow-up post and you do illustrate your point well for other kinds of searches.

At this point, I'd have to say it's a good idea and the future looks bright if they can include the rich, famous people who are also CEO's and powerful individuals in the business world.

[J. Jesus Ruiz]

Well... I guess that settles that :)

[Clyde Smith]

Not really.

lol