hutcheson - 6:38 pm on Oct 3, 2007 (gmt 0)

>More worryingly there are several examples in the directory where small web based start ups appear higher up the directory tree and (therefore more prominently) simply because they appear to be a better category match or simply there because they are ‘alternative’.

>There is no way these small web based entities could ever hope to offer the service level, security, and guarantees of the more traditional companies many of which are excluded on the grounds that their natural categories below are already “covered”.

No company is excluded based on the fact that its natural category is covered. Every businessperson (or organized group of businesspersons) has an inalienable source of unique information: the facts about his own identity and his own activities (whether for-profit or not.)

It's just that some businesses aren't listed at all. (MLM agents, web traffic drivers, etc.) So talking about "what web-based businesses can or can't do" doesn't matter. Considered as business sites, they aren't lited at all. ever.

However, engaging in a web-based business doesn't disqualify someone from having a listable personal site -- containing the usual personal things: what are _you_, what do _you_ know, what happened to _you_, etc. (And a personal site isn't precluded from advertising--your own or someone else's. It just can't be the main point of the site.)