So I added a link to a business using BrownBook.com. Everything says it is live, and it may be because I can find it using my account link to it, but not their search to it. So the search isn’t live in my first experience. [okay on edit, it was there ten minutes later … so not bad really]

I clicked on claim this business and I could have it for a mere $10 it claims even though the video Scoble did kept saying it was $22. So maybe I’ll make $2 a year off of it someday. Which is it and where do you find it.

Last comment on them for the night, it asks for the companies email address … but it doesn’t explain if it will be encoded or otherwise protected from spam … will it gents? Or did I just doom this business to receive unwanted junk mail?

I do find this:

Ownership of data and your privacy

Business listings are compiled from a combination of publically available business listing data and user generated data. Brand names and trade marks that feature in business listings are used only in the context of correctly identifying those brand names, trade marks or owners to which they relate. They are owned by their respective owners and Brownbook.net claims no association with any of them. All data and information present and entered into the Service becomes and remains the property of Brownbook Limited for the explicit purpose of providing our Services. We don’t sell our data, and we don’t spam you with irrelevant junk.

Guess we may be getting some relevant junk too, eh?

So I’m checking out the Scoble interview of BrownBook.net.

They pay only the last contributor and only if the business in fact “adopts” their web page on BrownBook.net. Why would they not divide the payment between all of the contributors? The first man in would be the one who did the most work it seems to me.

What am I missing? Dave Ingram and Mark Lyne see something I don’t. Help me out!

I just added my first business, The Jant Group where I recently bought some great window stickers for a sports team. I loved the stickers and they were very affordable. I was actually able to simply give them away to the parents because they were so reasonably priced, so this business came to mind for my testing purposes. Maybe they’ll adopt their listing and I’ll make $4.40 a year off of it … or will someone else edit it after me and take the money? I also ordered some vinyl banners from them. Pretty cool business, so maybe they’ll benefit from a BrownBook.net listing.

They must have something going as BrownBook.net has only been on-line for six months and they have a lot of businesses already listed (“22,346,320 businesses and growing”). Maybe this is the new facebook … I don’t really get facebook either.

Note: In re-reading this it might not be clear what I don’t get. I get the business listing part and the ability to review (or pan) a business, and lots of people will probably use it for those purposes. What I don’t get is why the last person to suggest/edit a business is the one who gets paid if a business decides to adopt their listing.

I’m curious how many businesses do in fact adopt their listings. I’m guessing not too many on a percentage basis. But from their perspective I suspect it’s about how many, not what percentage.

I recently had occasion to order from Eastbay.com. There was a minor glitch in their website. They responded to my comments on the issue and made an appropriate adjustment. This is the second time I have had a customer service issue with them and both times they were prompt, appropriate and cheerful. This is a company I well definitely do further business with.

One really cool thing about their website is their sizing information that shows what sizes of a particular shoe are in stock. I really appreciated this feature once I caught on to it. It allowed me to quickly roll through several shoe models and see if they had the size I needed. I also found their information very helpful in regards whether a shoe ran true to size, or was over/under sized. Great info, great site as far as I was concerned.