JuliannaThrough Google Alerts, I receive a daily mishmash of domain news specific to Canada. The news briefs mostly relate to domain disputes, sales of .CA domains and portfolios, news releases from other registrars, etc. Every once in a while I get an alert about something noteworthy. This was one of those mornings.
Webnames.ca customer n49 recently launched a Web 2.0 business directory that calls on Canadians to rate, review, and share experiences about all manners of service providers, from healthcare to catering. n49’s president Rick Silver describes it as “uniquely Canadian site where anyone north of the 49th parallel can create and share their own local business directory for free,”
The directory seeks to leverage consumer word-of-mouth through a social networking service and features a user interface reminiscent of Facebook. Every member gets a unique URL – e.g., julianna.n49.ca – which links to a personal profile and directory, favourite listings, reviews and the profiles of friends. The directory uses a wiki-esque format for contributing and editing listings of businesses and service providers. Listings come in “featured” (paid) or “basic” (free), but their order is determined by user popularity.
What’s the connection to domain names? As a backbone, n49’s directory utlises thousands of top-notch, generic .CA domain names such as dining.ca, clubs.ca, childcare.ca, plumbers.ca, salons.ca and caterers.ca (just to name a few) to organize the business listings. Enter any of the above domains into your browser and you’ll get the directory’s landing page (below). To view business listings (each category has its own generic domain name) you must first create an account with n49. 
Whether or not Canadians take to the newly launched directory is yet to be seen. By now, we’ve witnessed enough online social networking hits and misses to have learned some lessons – the biggest one being that online communities are not created per se, rather, they flourish when a pre-existing offline community is provided a fun and intuitive information and communication utility. For example, Flickr was first passionately embraced by digital photographers, now it’s used by anyone and everyone with access to a digital camera. Facebook similarly exploded on university campuses with students looking for better ways to share class schedules and social calendars with friends and acquaintances; today, most of our moms and bosses are using it too.
Social networking websites are most successful when an online utility gives the pre-existing social behaviors of offline communities a home. Are Canadians passionate enough about their favourite take-out joints, hair salons, mechanics, dentists and realtors to make n49 a hit? Only time will tell … On a final note, it’s also good to see n49 attempting to develop some useful content around their extensive domain portfolio rather than simply parking and monetizing each domain with advertising links. We hope their new site is a success and recommend that you check it out!
More Information
N49 gives Canadians a voice in local search with their new open business directory
Visit n49 to take a tour or create an account
I posted a bad review for a company, Blue Daizy, that had screwed me over with my wedding videography (i.e. they bailed on my wife and I only a couple of months before our wedding, and were very rude and inconsiderate about it).
Blue Daizy saw my review and got n49.ca to take my review down. Blue Daizy was even nice enough to threaten me with legal action (suing me for letting people know they screwed me over??).
The person I was dealing with from n49.ca was very nice and took the time to explain to me what had happened, but in the end they took my review down. To be fair to them, they asked me for documented proof of the review, but why would I go out of my way to to defend my review (and the integrity and credibility of their website) when they were so quick to take my post down??
So… be warned… n49.ca is a great site to review businesses… provided you’re prepared to have it taken down if the company isn’t happy, and you don’t happen to have the leftovers from a lousy meal, recorded phone calls, or who knows what evidence of generally lousy service(!!!)