There are an awful lot of experiments these days. As we move forward into the next phase of the web's existence, we're seeing more and more of the "strike it rich" behavior that characterized the last run up. The goal seems to be a low maintenance, high tech way to print money.

It's possible, of course. A good look in the direction of Salary.com, Authoria or SuccessFactors will show you the rudiments of repeatable processes that execute with low touch. Each of these companies has built a library of material that is delivered on demand. Each of these companies merits a comparison with successful icons.

Then, there are the other experiments.

We picked Chimby because it is the best of the lot (and the example saves us the problem of hurting the feelings of a couple of good friends). Chimby is a content aggregator in the pure technology sense. In its own words,

What is CHIMBY?
CHIMBY is a vertical search engine that lets you search over 300 career advice sites at once.
We crawl the sites of career coaches, career blogs and other media sources in order to provide the best answers to your career advice questions. Each source is hand-picked to ensure fresh, relevant results from an exclusive club of career advice experts.
Gateway to Career Advice
So what kind of sites are part of CHIMBY? We crawl many sites you already know such as QuintCareers, Career Journal, Weddles & more. We also index a number of new career blogs written by recruiters and career coaches. Together, they represent the best career advice sites on the web.

In other words, it's a search engine. Like Google (the role model for technology without touch), Chimby indexes content and then directs traffic towards it. It's a content based traffic router. The function is pure and straightforward. Chimby works because it doesn't try to be more than a technology play.

Other recent experiments are not so fortunate. Forgetting that business is not (yet) a content tagging free for all and that all systems will be gamed, we're starting to see very badly executed ideas around our playing field. Chimby's success is its front end, thoughtfully designed. Jobster's saving grace is the well defined set of operating instructions.

Technology experiments without instructions and without gobs of intervention just don't last very long. It's easy to make a website. It's really hard to deal with the consequences.

John Sumser © TwoColorHat. All Rights Reserved.
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