Proliphiq: first impressions

A while ago, I read about an upcoming newbie in the Social Media world: Proliphiq.
Curious, I signed up back then to get an invitation to try out the Beta version – and received the invitation this morning. Of course, I immediately dropped everything I was doing (that is, a nice long translation into French of a user manual) to try out this new toy. I’d like to share just a few very first impressions.

First, for those wondering what the heck Proliphiq is, here’s their description:
“Credibility. Delivered. Proliphiq is the search engine for truly credible sources of real-time information.” “With Proliphiq, you can check how you (and your friends) rank in the social world, find people who are the most credible for the topics you’re interested in, learn how to be more credible, and more!”

The spontaneous thought is “Ok, this is more or less like Klout”. Well, more or less. Proliphiq, unlike Klout, is about other people. I mentioned already in a previous article that Klout can be used as a really powerful directory for topic and influence leaders within your industry, but the fact is, Klout is about oneself and is widely used so. So, first point: from my first impressions, Proliphiq is quite the opposite. It’s about the others before being about you (which is kind of the point of Social Networking to me).

Not everybody so far is listed on Prolihpiq -maybe it’s due to the fact that it’s still in Beta? Not sure, but you won’t be there unless you actually register yourself in there. Big difference with Klout, where everybody is whether they want it or not.

Proliphiq is indeed a search engine for people. Before some of you sigh “not another social network”, well, Proliphiq is not a social network. It’s a searchable directory of people by topic. You can search people by name to see how they rank and what topics / tags they are associated with. You can search by topic and you’ll get the list of profiles associated with that topic (that is social-media contributors to that topic). You can rate them using a thumbs up/thumbs down voting system.

Another big difference with Klout: so far, I’ve seen on Proliphiq nothing like the Klout score. You get ranked according to the number of thumbs up you have on  a given topic, but there seem to be no figure based on an unclear and complex algorithm – your friends, followers and contacts arte you positively or negatively whether they consider you really are a contributor on topic X. Somehow and even though I have nothing against Klout, I like that system, it seems more transparent and fairer.

Regarding the interface itself – I guess it’s a matter of taste but I like the layout and the design of the site. Functionalities are easy to find and all in all, it is pretty user-friendly. It could be a bit more intuitive but then again, they are still in the beta phase, so that may be improved by the time of the public release.

In all I see some potential here, particularly on the business level. Proliphiq could become a pretty awesome B2B directory (maybe even a useful online branding, SEO and online reputation management tool). I’m obviously thinking abot the translation indutry, here.  Again it’s just my opinion, but I can see the use in such a directory: it could be useful for agencies seeking end-clients and translators based on specialty fields, and freelance translators could find there agencies and partners based on fields and languages. But that scenario can obviously be applied to other industries.

So, Proliphiq, an alternative to Klout? A complement to Klout? Or just another influence measurement tool?

http://www.proliphiq.com
On invitation only for now, so if you want to try it out, let me know and I’ll send you one.

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