There is a revitalization taking place in Silicon Alley and one of our New York clients is right in the middle of it: Attendi, Inc. is launching its beta today at DEMOfall 2007 in San Diego after many months of preparation. Attendi is a new type of search engine that let’s you find and interact with the Web’s most valuable resource: other people. The company is hoping to improve search through the power of conversation. Rather than searching and indexing web content like other search engines, Attendi captures the insights of its users and makes them accessible to others in the community. Essentially, it searches people, not web pages.
The company, founded by entrepreneur Drew Rayman, is a smart combination of search, social networking and live chat. With Attendi, you can use chat functionality to have real-time conversations with those who share similar interests, hobbies, passions and expertise. Attendi then archives and delivers these conversations as relevant search results to benefit other users.
Attendi is hoping to build a strong community of users they call “Attendis.” Click here to sign up for the beta and become one of the first Attendis!
Newly-hired TechCrunch (and former Business 2.0) editor Erick Schonfeld has the first word on what Attendi is all about.