iBegin - This is Good… Really Good

 

I’m still wading through all of this, and am pretty floored. From trading a few emails with founder Ahmed Farooq a week or so ago, my first words were “this is freaking amazing!”.

Nonetheless, enter iBegin Source - a new local business data portal, where you can purchase business data nationally, by State, at a fraction of the cost of what data aggregators charge, it’s updated daily, it’s accurate, it’s user-editable to help ensure accuracy (think Wiki), and even includes geo-coding.

To put it in perspective, you can purchase a Minnesota business list for a thousand bucks, sort how you choose, it’s constantly updated, and you don’t have to re-up every year.

There are a few other things they have going that’s more related to local search, and it’s equally impressive. I’m guessing it’s ok to mention it, but I’m going to wait until I hear it’s ok to do so.

For more info, there’s a really good interview with Ahmed on the Blumenthals blog.