In its constant endeavor to connect peers and enable fruiful experience sharing, PeerSpot developed a Search Engine in order to help members discover suitable peers that they may seek to meet. Currently, PeerSpot has following mechanisms of search:
- Search by Name
◦ Searching for “krishna” on PeerSpot search-bar would show multiple profiles containing “krishna”, viz a viz Krishna Choksi Shah, Gokul Krishna, Ashwin Krishna KP, Pobba Vamsi Krishna, etc.
- Search by Skill or Experience
◦ Eg: Search for Wildlife Photography, Six Sigma, Painting
- Generic search in Profile Summary, Education and User Description
◦ When looking for Alma Mater, Organizational Associations, etc.
- Handler based searches (eg: @tapan1, @pobba1)
While each search mechanism serves its purpose, it may be difficult to look for a person you are exclusively seeking to meet.
PeerSpot is glad to introduce a unique “Handler” for each user, in the form of — @ + ‘user’s first name’ + number, e.g. @tapan1 for “Tapan Patel”. Handlers have become ubiquitous on social media, be it Twitter, Facebook, and recently adopted by WhatsApp and Gmail as well.
There are multiple avenues where one may require to communicate their identity, profile or a method to reach them personally. The traditional way has been sharing physical cards with an Email or Phone. Though this works, there can be concerns around sharing personal contact details, and managing contact cards in this technology dominated era is not desirable. Also, this mechanism is not feasible at a public event like conference, expert talk, community gathering, etc.
On the other hand, social and professional media serve their purpose of social connection, showcasing profile or connecting for specific professional needs. However, there is a lack of mechanism to reach out a person for an individual meeting, or to even know whether a person is willing to entertain a meeting request.
The purpose of PeerSpot Handler is to uniquely identify a Person and enable the person to share their handler seamlessly in order to invite a potential audience or person seeking to meet them. The benefits are:
- Sharing contact without privacy concern, which may arise in case of sharing personal Mobile or Email ID
- Unique to a profile on PeerSpot as @tapan1 only points to required “Tapan Patel”
- Clearly communicating the willingness to meet personally
- Setting clear expectations of respecting their time by setting a token fee, while reserving the right to waive off fees depending on a request
