Social networking, content aggregation and people search - who will be the missing link ?

If you are a regular reader of Ziki’s blog, you might have followed our evolution from a pure social network in the V1 to a people search engine in the V2, always offering feed aggregation services to our users.
For some of you Ziki’s evolution might appear as an important strategic turnaround. For us, Ziki is following a clear line to become a leading people search engine.
In fact, social networking, content aggregation and people search are closely related.

Let’s have a short look on what Wikipedia is saying on these three terms:

Social Networking: “[…] communities of people who share interests and activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others […]� (Source: Wikipedia)

Content aggregators: “[…] reduce the time and effort needed to regularly check websites for updates, creating a unique information space or “personal newspaper�.[…]� (Source: Wikipedia)

People search: “[…] allows users to search for people across social networks […], to search by name, and also by interest, location, and other information […], find others who have similar interests and find out what social network they can be found on […]� (Source: Wikipedia)

Probably, you have already guessed how to make the link between the three. It’s simple:

While social networking websites constitute the source by concentrating people with the same interests or activities on a common space, content aggregation is the communication tool (with tags, comments, posts and others). They make it possible to associate someone with certain types of interests and activities. People search engines are the filters. They screen network members’ communication tools and figure out classified results.

What makes Ziki a special actor amongst people search engines is to have its own source. During the first year of Ziki’s existence, Ziki’s network has grown fast and now constitutes a great search potential for its users. We are convinced that Ziki’s success is mainly due to its capacity to integrate effeciently social networking, content aggregation and people search.

Check out the following video if you’d like to find out more on social networking: