The Internet Sourcing Community

First Look at Skills.to -- Twitter Based People Search Engine

I admit, I was not too enthusiastic about another skills search engine when I first glanced at the article from Read Write Web. But when I saw that it was Twitter based, my interest level increased.

According to the article "Joshua Schachter and his team of star developers at TastyLabs" designed a search engine that interfaces with your Twitter account. You add your own skills and endorse others that claim to be proficient with various other skills. I equate it to a miniature Linkedin (No offense intended if you read this Joshua).

Now the question is how do I use this for sourcing? The site is not boolean compatible which is not ideal, however you can x-ray this site using the skill you are looking for in conjunction with the "inurl:" command that will provide results of anyone that identified themselves with that particular skill.

Search: site:skills.to/skill programming

Results: http://goo.gl/HtcYt

Here is another search I ran for "recruiting" within the site itself. The search results will produce the skill you are searching for and anyone that has the keyword in their Twitter handle.

Why I like it

It's clever: Turns your Twitter account into a searchable skills database
easy to build a consistent network of who to follow identified by skills
keyword search will produce skills indicated by user or in the name of the Twitter handle
endorsement ability
another site that increases your online visibility
possible tool for pipe line creation.
x-ray capable

Possible Roadblocks

no clear location based results- you would have to look them up elsewhere to identify location or add it to your keywords
not boolean compatible

Overall, this site looks like it has potential as it grows for networking and sourcing, but time will tell. The creator said the core idea behind the site is a "Search engine for people by property of the person," he says. "Portable reputation someday." Definitely interesting and something to keep an eye on if Twitter doesn't try to buy them out first.