Finding people on the Web can sometimes be difficult. Many people turn to Google to search for people but unless someone is very active online it can be tough to find people. In addition, there are so many social networks that do not index well on Google. Wink, a Los Altos, California based startup, tries to make it easy to find people online.
Wink is a people search engine that makes it easy to find and connect with people online by indexing over 200 million people profiles from across the Web. Wink also creates an online profile and aggregates your profiles from Facebook, MySpace and a number of other online profile and social network sites. Spock and Gleamd offer people search in slightly different flavors but Wink seems to focus on a solid search technology for people.
I bumped into Wink CEO, Michael Tanne last night at the Hard Rock Hotel for the opening night event for the Blog World Expo. He mentioned that Wink had just rolled out some updates which empowered users to create profiles which would in turn help create profile pages with profile aggregations. Michael also emphasized that Wink is more a search technology than a profile aggregator (more on profile aggregators here).
Wink profiles and people search technology offers a great experience but its biggest issue might be getting people to use it over Google but if you look at the results side-by-side Wink wins hands down. Check out a Wink search vs. a Google search and decide for yourself.
