Yasni: Yet Another People Search Engine? - Summary of Services
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Okay, so I had to register before I could use Yasni for anything. What can I do with the search engine now? Well, the site works a little like a cross between a social site and a search engine. We've seen this kind of thing before; Yasni does it in its own way, of course. I'll show you everything with screen shots in the second and final part of this review. Right now, I'm going to list the services Yasni offers, grabbed from its Terms of Use.
First, of course, is the people search aspect, which is open to everyone. Yasni only pulls information that is available to the general public. If you're not registered, this is all you can do at the company's web site. Once you register, a whole range of services opens up to you.
You can create your own personal public web profile with your own information. You can evaluate search results or information on other registered users by various criteria. You can contact other users electronically, confirm contacts and communicate with them. It sounds very much like a social site, right? All of these services are currently free of charge, and will probably stay free, but Yasni “reserves the right to offer certain extended services (e.g. so-called premium services) for a price.” Good luck with that.
Also, after you register, Yasni apparently keeps a special eye out for you. When I came back to the site after some absence, Yasni reported on the home page that it had found 234 more items on me. Intrigued, I clicked the link. Most of them weren't me, of course, but a good number of the items were. Some linked to sites that were ripping off our content (that seems almost inevitable ), but more linked to sites that cited and/or summarized some article I'd written. Some, strangely enough, linked to sites that required a login. This puzzled me. It meant that Yasni was able to spider information that I couldn't even get to because I didn't have a login on that site. I know that many of the major search engines get that kind of information; I didn't know a smaller outfit like Yasni could also get it. So much for "walled gardens"!
By the way, the search box isn't always an ordinary search box. When I clicked on the text box to start a people search, it changed to include a keyword section. It's a nice touch, because it lets you use a keyword associated with that person to distinguish them from others who might have the same name. Here's a screen shot so you can see what I mean:
What this means is that someone could search for me and specify “SEO” or “tech writer” or whatever seems appropriate so that they don't turn up all of the other people named Terri Wells. That's good to know; there's at least one other Terri Wells out there who writes technology-related articles (though not SEO-related, as far as I know).
One word about the search results: overwhelming. But in a good way. I put my own name in, and it returned 80 results. At the time of writing, I hadn't sifted through them to see which ones are mine and which aren't. If you're editing your profile, however, you can use searches on your own name to fill out your profile; there are check boxes next to every link to let you add it! In the next part, we'll take a look at profiles and a closer look at searches. See you then!
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