Spock.com, is a startup that I briefly touched on some time ago.  Sure there was a bit of controversy around some verbal gaffe’s the founders made, but there hasn’t been too much positive buzz around this application in a while.  Read/Write Web has a new review which is largely positive.

Having had a chance to use it now for a few weeks, I don’t disagree with the review.  In fact, its software is intuitive, and, potentially useful.  That is, I say “potentially”, because Spock.com is one of these Web2.0 application that *really* requires large scale macro-type network effects to work.

This is what I mean.

The real power in something like Spock won’t be for people who are well known/ celebrities.  Spock.com does that well.  But on the other hand, do you really need a fancy search engine to tell you that George Bush has twin daughters?

No, the real strength will be in its ability to find everyone *else*.  Friends you may have heard about, potential employers, employees, or even people you may have read about online.

To do that, it really requires a lot of data.  Lots of people inputing their own profiles.  Lots of people adding others.  And this is because although its able to mine data from social networks, like LinkedIn or MySpace, the fact is that there are still loads and loads of people that *aren’t* on those sites.

Sure, Spock.com could bank on the fact that social networking usage will rise to a high enough level that it self-populates its own database past the tipping point — but is that a viable strategy?

More to the point: what about all the non-networked information about people that is already out there?  Case in point: Mil Arcega, the guy that I was trying to look for last time.  Now, he is a former reporter for a local news station out on the West Coast.  Not exactly an unknown … but the only thing I could find was a MySpace profile on the guy, and I’m pretty sure (I really hope, rather) that it wasn’t him.

The fact that I pointed out which still remains true is that if you Google his name, there are loads of information on him.  Its just not in a social network.

I’m all for web applications that are useful.  Spock.com has a lot of potential.  It just needs to increase the available data that it has to make it useful.  Should they consider paying people a la Mahalo/ Jason Calacanis?  Or should they just bring on a Celebrity blogger like Guy Kawasaki to drum up enough buzz? I don’t know when that tipping point will occur — but it should do everything in its power to make it so.  Because without it, its really not as helpful as it could be.

Footnote: I have a WHACK load of invitations for Spock.com now.  If you’re interested in checking it out, just leave a comment and I’ll try and send everyone an invitation.

Guy Kawasaki breaks down how much he paid for Truemors in a fairly self-satisfied tone (or is it merely meant to be farcical?) and itemizes his $12,107 cost.  Posts like this are great link bait precisely because there’s a bit of a voyeur in all of us, and when its combined with a “how-I-did-it” type angle — well, that stuff is gold.  Compound that with Guy Kawasaki’s ultra-rarified-A-list status, and I’m surprised it still isn’t pinging around the blogosphere.

Which is really the point, isn’t it?

I mentioned it as much in my first post about Truemors, but there’s one vital thing missing from his equation.  After all, that he proved it costs virtually peanuts to *create* a web application is no great discovery.  That’s self evident to anyone who has a passing familiarity with the Web2.0 scene these days.

No, the real bit of the missing equation is how much publicity a somewhat mediocre product got.

Sure it cost just over $12,000 to make, but it cost zero dollars to get the publicity it got — leading to the massive influx of pageviews and uniques over that short period it was launched.  No, you can’t pay to get mentioned in a negative light on TechCrunch that many times, unless your name is Ted Murphy — and as an interesting aside, he mentioned at Mesh that he got multiples as many times as many visitors with negative posts on TechCrunch, and they all converted better than with positive posts — go figure!

Or, of course, unless you happen to be a luminary like Guy Kawasaki who happens to trot out a magnificent piece of meritrious rinky-dink twaddle.

The power of truemors isn’t in its wonderful software platform — its in its network effects.  And as a lesson to all would-be startups: if the special sauce isn’t in the technology, then its got to be in the network.  And if the network is all you’ve got, then you’ve got to grow it as fast as possible — and having a rock star founder is a big, big help because it provides you with all kinds of free publicity you wouldn’t ordinarily get.

The $12,107 figure is actually immaterial.  What’s important is how it was launched under Guy Kawasaki’s banner, and let’s face it folks — if it wasn’t Guy Kawasaki generating all that pub, Truemors would probably be languishing right with all the other bajillions of web2.0 startups who wouldn’t be half as lucky to get a single mention on TechCrunch, never mind three.