January 18, 2007
JudysBook should have Focused
Andy Sack, Judy’s Book co-founder and CEO, believes Judy’s Book should have focused on a specific category, in a specific region (sort of reminds me of Openlist, formerly local-i or even how Citysearch used to focus on Arts and Entertainment categories before expanding). He wishes he had focused on restaurants, most likely in the Seattle area (where they are located) because of 1. consumer passion, 2. review writing (and how users trust friends’ recommendations over someone like Zagats), 3. daily activity (frequency is important…we eat multiple times a day so are more likely to review about it).
Andy definitely sounds like he knows what he is talking about. I would say that I would most likely have to agree with him on his 3 points on why restaurants is such a great source for user-generated content.
He summarizes his post by using Amazon as an example (they focused on books first before expanding). Nowadays, they’re into everything. Even their logo says so… A - Z (explanation).
Judysbook and Insiderpages have received a lot of attention lately for allegedly downsizing or changing directions.








Brendan Lally said,
April 27, 2007 @ 2:43 pm
Yeah - its interesting how he can 2 change but at least they did.
Hindsight is a great thing (so 2 is listening 2 those that have the experience and have done it b4)
I was involved with a local search/recommendation startup so followed Judy’s Book quite closely
Lal