How good is ZoomInfo for searching?

I've been playing recently with ZoomInfo, which at first glance seems an interesting tool for finding people online.

I used a couple of live scenarios recently where I needed to find a contact for a client; comparing the results from ZoomInfo with using Google was very interesting. Google, as always, delivered the results I wanted (searching for some background and email address), but you had to work for it over several searches.

ZoomInfo was able to display a very simple summary on one page, and came up with a few nice features for one contact which was the ability to email them (through the site, not directly). Interestingly though, some of the contact details were not up to date when I finally contacted the person (but I would have still got to the person I wanted so that wasn't a real problem)

For salespeople or recruiters without the skills to data-mine Google, I think it's a useful tool. As it gathers momentum and allows you to contact a significant number of people dirctly through the site, it will be a useful additional to the contact listing and social network space.

Like some other services, the additional features, such as Sales Intelligence, are still USA focused.

If you want to be found on ZoonInfo, you can also create an account and update your details to make it easier for people to find you.

David Regler
Maine Associates Ltd

Technorati Tags - Business Development, Sales Outsourcing, social networking, ZoomInfo