I've received a few pings
on the news that Google may be launching a classifieds product as well as
entering the "classifieds search" game. Here are a couple
of quick comments…
I'm clearly concerned. As an entrepreneur, it pays to be paranoid
about a lot of things. Google making a move into classifieds is something we
need to watch closely. Moreover, I have tremendous respect for Google. They
build great products.
Google’s entry into
classifieds search is also not surprising. Google is attempting to index all of the world’s information.
Online classifieds, with close to a $20B market, should be on their roadmap.
Google directly taking and
publishing classified listings would be much more disquieting. As I mentioned
in a previous
post, I think this is a dangerous line to cross. Classifieds search can be
a win/win, where publishers get free traffic and buyers have a better
experience (also helpful to those selling classifieds). Once a search site
begins to sell/publish listings, however, they hurt the partners in their index
by attempting to steal their business.
At the end of the day, I
believe Google and Oodle are on different paths. I strongly suspect that Google
is approaching classifieds from a platform perspective. Google is a search
company; online classifieds are another content source they can integrate into
their search platform. Oodle is a classifieds company – search being one
element of our value proposition. Our success rests on our ability to better
focus on the whole online classifieds problem.
I wouldn't be too concerned people dont generally notice projects in the lab. However, I believe G will provide better results than your site scraper.
Posted by: Jason | September 30, 2005 at 12:25 PM