I ran across this review of Loladex the other day and it made me think. Also, all the data portability stuff going on with MySpace, Facbook and Google’s new FriendConnect also got me thinking about some uber/meta-engine for recommendations that would mine all the discussions and referrals all over the Web and consolidate them. (Challenge: building trust/brand. Arguably Grayboxx was a version of this and fell prey to insufficient time to build user trust.)
We’ve had myriad local destination sites, which often syndicate their content to third parties. We’re also seeing sites like Loladex and others try and build on existing connections and communities — call it a local “layer” on the social graph (hate the term).
But soon, we may see engines that try and tap all the local recommendations out there and organize that content in some structured coherent way. Content/review aggregators such as OpenList, Google Maps or BooRah do a version of this today. But there may be a new group of sites (e.g., Mechanical Zoo) that try and do a “next generation” version of recommendations aggregation.
Screenwerk 
May 12, 2008 at 10:49 pm
I’m tempted to see how many times I can use “meta” in a single hyper-hyphenated compound word. I’m tempted, because one analogy that comes to mind is the feed reader, which aggregates everything I want to read, and if I set it up right (which I haven’t) tells me what my friends think is particularly worth reading. So, here I sit, virtually inside my feed reader, which is aggregating news, reading and now commenting about how aggregation of local reviews could benefit from … something like a feed reader. Maybe meta is the wrong Latin root, but you get the idea.
I’ve been anxious to see more of what Mechanical Zoo is up to, along with developments at places like Open List. Of course, here at Loladex we think a critical piece of any review aggregation scheme is to feature the sentiments of a user’s personal network.
May 13, 2008 at 12:34 am
“Meta” on Powerset: http://www.powerset.com/explore/semhtml/Meta?query=meta
Powerset is something of a meta-engine for Wikipedia. 🙂