BusinessWeek has a nice story on Google Base. Click here to checkout the entire story.
Some highlights:
Even more than eBay, Craigslist looks to be squarely
in Google Base’s sights. Minority-owned by eBay, it has garnered a
loyal following of people who like its spare but friendly feel — and
its proven success in matching buyers and sellers. Google’s widely
recognized brand could help it ramp up classified listings quickly,
surpassing Craigslist in short order …
and
It appears Google Base would put Google into the
content business — that is, content it would own, not just point to.
That could rankle partners, specifically the classified-ad sites such
as Monster.com from which Google recently has been asking for feeds.
"It starts to put them in heavy conflict with their partners," says
Craig Donato, CEO of Oodle, a new search engine for classifieds, itself
a would-be competitor.
and
The biggest question remains whether Google can
deliver on services beyond ad-supported search. It’s developing a
reputation for launching beta project after beta project, from its
Gmail Web-based e-mail service to its Orkut social-networking service,
that fail to gain much traction. In particular, traffic to Froogle
trails far behind that of rivals such as eBay’s Shopping.com and E.W.
Scripps’ Shopzilla, despite Froogle’s debut in test mode more than two
years ago.
and
Google also would need to create a reputation system
to rival eBay’s formidable feedback system, by which buyers and sellers
rate each other to build trust.
Still, Google has a big and
growing cash hoard it could use to hire the right talent, create the
needed technology, or strike a deal with partners and the many upstarts
already challenging Internet incumbents. If nothing else, Google Base
will force a whole new swath of the business world to pay attention to
the brash boys from Mountain View, Calif.
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