InfoUSA
recently posted an article on their site about improving data quality. While we agree that improving data quality is a noble goal, we think it's notable that the author of the post, Pankaj Mathur, is a sales executive and not a member of the product team. It's also notable that Mr. Mathur uses our site almost exclusively for all his examples, and that he makes it a point to include our logo on all screenshots.
Mr. Mathur's post is not without merit. We are working diligently to improve and automate methods to vet our data, and we encourage our users to notify us of data issues so we can research and correct them.
But it's also true that most data originates from the "big 3" providers: InfoUSA, Localeze, and Axciom. These companies spend a lot of money to correct and verify their data. And yet despite their high price -- based on what some customers tell us, anywhere between $300,000 to $1,000,000+ -- InfoUSA's local data is still fraught with inaccuracies. This was precisely why we turned down Mr Mathur when asked to use InfoGroup's data.
Let's take a look at the examples that Mr. Mathur uses: The very first example is of Office Depot located at Deerfield Beach, FL. (You know, the first of multiple YellowBot screenshots). If your'e an InfoUSA customer, go into your database and review InfoUSA ID 490977360. If you have already processed your latest feed from InfoUSA, you might have noticed it was removed, just in time for Mr. Mathur's post. That's an awful lot of money for data that is inaccurate. Remember, this was Mr. Mathur's choice of businesses to use as an example.
In the second example, you may have noticed a screenshot of Google results for The Pantry, Inc. Lucky for Google, which obtains its data from InfoUSA, Mr. Mathur cropped out the search giant's logo before including it in his post.
As a former customer of InfoUSA (when I worked at Citysearch), I am surprised by Mr. Mathur's hubris and by his willingness to throw others
under the bus for flaws his organization shares. He is all too ready to point out others' mistakes, but not his own.
Pankaj, I'm calling you out. If you truly care about the quality of data that is available, then start talking about how to correct data. Anything else is salesmanship disguised as constructive conversation.
I do wish Mr. Mathur the best, because he clearly favors YellowBot over InfoUSA's site and the sites of his customers -- over, in fact, any other local search site. In fact, I almost feel sorry for him, because InfoUSA's business model so badly needs to adapt if it's going to survive. He's crying out from a sinking ship.
All sympathies aside, I find it offensive that Mr. Mathur chooses to insult Quizno's for knowing only how to make a sandwich. Does that mean he thinks that you, the business owner, don't know how to run your business because you're only good at building a product? Or what about you, good user -- are you only incapable of searching for a business, giving your opinion of it, or submitting correct information on a site that has bad data from InfoUSA?
In any case, if you do want to utilize YellowBot data -- and we have
lots of data, plus features built on APIs -- you should contact us. We'd be happy to work with you as a supplement to your existing data provider, or as an alternative.
Meanwhile, be sure to let Mr. Mathur know what you think via email or phone since his "blog" does not have comments:
email, phone: (650) 620-1300
You can read more on the
Kelsey Group Blog or on
Peter Krasilovsky's Blog.
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