I rarely disagree with OM, but Glassdoor.com is something that looked marginal at first, but really profound the more I examined it.
In case you missed what they are about, Glassdoor lets you see salary information as long as you let them know your salary info, anonymously.
Here’s what I like about it:
1. Its very strongly viral and symmetric (readers are publishers), since its based on ‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours’.
2. It does what the Internet does best – creates a flow of information that used to be proprietary and exclusive.
3. The information has an extremely high value-per-bit ratio.
4. The place where this information resides is extremely fragmented, so the anonymity genuinely covers people.
5. The concept could be extended to anything with a pseudo hidden price and tawdry haggling mechanism – from enterprise software to cars.
In short, I love it, the most elegantly simple startup I’ve seen in a while. The challenge, as with most internet ideas, will be to deal with useless data and spam.