Hoping to “provide people with the tools they need to be successful” is Jobvana, a new social search service that connects people with personalized services and information.
We dig the clever name, but we’re undecided about the service.
If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if Craigslist and LinkedIn had a love child, it would probably look something like Jobavana. The site might be trying to be too many things at once.
The good news is that registration is free and doesn’t require an e-mail confirmation. Your basic profile can be set up in under five minutes.
General categories are broken into five sections: professional, skilled trade, creative, instructional, family/domestic. Within each are subcategories. Whether you are looking for work or looking for someone to do work for you, these five areas are your starting point.
Jobvana has been set up so that the more complete your profile, and the more active you are on the site, the better your profile page will rank in their search engine. The site encourages you to blog using their blogging tools. We would like to see an import feature, so that you registered users can promote their current blogs.
At the time of this post there appears to be a little over 100 profiles listed. As with any site of this nature, its success will be largely contingent on their ability to attract people.
One way the site is trying to lure people in is by giving away $5,000 in “local advertising.” The five winners (chosen at random when you create a profile page) will get advertising directed to their Jobvana homepage. A clever contest because Jobvana can’t lose. At the end of the day its still potential free promotion for the page owner, so that alone is worth the sign up.
It should be noted that there appears to be an approval process. I set up my profile but did not see myself come up on the site for several hours.
If you build your network, will the customers come? Many of these social networking sites are debunking the Field of Dreams adage, ‘If you build it, they will come.’
We’ll keep our eye on the site as it grows, and we wish the Washington-based team luck. Again, we LOVE the name!
View my profile here.
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