Vertical metasearch engine Costumzee relaunched late this summer to offer costume search with all the Web 2.0 trimmings. (You could say it came back from the dead, just in time for Halloween.) Costumzee got a write up over at Search Engine Watch this morning. Search by tag, see related costumes, review costumes, give costume ideas ratings by stars, build your profile – it’s a little hard to find the RSS URL for a search but other than that Costumzee is very 2.0 and the company knows it. You can also view other users’ lists of costume ideas, so if you’re dying to find out what Michael Arrington is going to dress up as this year (?) perhaps you’ll be able to find out after he reads this post. The most important part of the site is that users can make their own costume suggestions – this is more than just a one way trip through affiliate links. Search results link out to a number of sites where you can purchase costumes, but I think having access to the tools that Costumzee offers is a great idea. There needs to be a way for people to be discretely told that their idea is bad before they show up at a party. Of course Halloween may ultimately be about the attitude of the costume wearer; costume planning could be an art that the truly creative need no help from the web on. None the less, a site like Costumzee could help raise the bar for casual Halloween apparel planning. It’s an interesting October example of a vertical search engine that serves a genuine, if minor purpose. Check it out and help me vote down “The Burger King” as a dumb costume idea. → Read More