I had a chat yesterday with another Irish entrepreneur about some dev shops I had investigated. Afterwards I sent him on a list of outsourcing vendors that impressed me during my research (but I haven’t used). It struck me this morning that it might be useful to create some sort of wiki or group blog where those involved in software development in Ireland could list vendors they have used and like or who have been recommended to them or who look good. Basically a very simplistic dev-niche variation on HandyMan.ie.
Would it make sense to only post “good” vendors? Also, there’ll be situations where a vendor has delighted one customer and totally let down another and it could degenerate into a flame war. Whatever approach is taken, it would require more than just category and vendor name so an OPML file won’t do, James 
If such a thing had existed earlier this year, it might have saved us a ton of effort in trying to find a good dev shop.
Thoughts anyone? Preferred method of doing it? Should it require some sort of simple registration or identity rather than a free-for-all? Eventually I’m sure an aggregation of hReviews will be the way to go but for the moment, something simple which I could kick off immediately seems best. Votes for a simple group blog on wordpress.com or a page on PBwiki?
UPDATE 1: Before James gets a chance to reply, of course OPML plus Grazr is capable of doing this but the barrier to entry is still too high for noobs.
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Damn, didn’t get there in time!
Oh ye of little faith, didn’t ye know that OPML can be used to solve absolutely any problem? But be very very careful about calling anything a ‘list’
Perhaps we should use the word “musings” rather than “lists”!
I’m happy to kick this off with a mix of people I talked to and liked combined with those who have been recommended to me.
It’s a good idea, but not wanting to be too skeptical , how do you avoid the ‘rateMySolicitor’ type court cases?
Also , given that vendors are more Web 2 aware than most solicitors, what’s to stop them gaming the site and putting up positive reviews.
Most of the time, if I’m happy to recommend somebody I’ll connect to them via LinkedIn.com. And yes, I know that OPML would be a more vendor-neutral solution …
Good points Paul. I have some more thoughts on this which I’ll expand on shortly.
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