europeforvisitors - 1:56 am on Jul 26, 2007 (gmt 0)

Which brings me back to what I stated in my previous post that a new mega-directory service would have to be built as a series of niche directories that address the information needs of each market and not just a list of names and brief descriptions.

That's what About.com (then The Mining Co.) wanted to do back in the 1990s, when its emphasis was on directories and the goal was to out-Yahoo the Yahoo directory.

Today, the idea seems almost quaint, because--as your own experience shows--individuals or small teams with an interest in a topic or a locality will nearly always be able to do a better job than a directory that's based on a top-down hierarchy.