Be Aware of Google Bearing Gifts
For the first few days, everyone was focused on Google Base’s implication on the e-commerce industry (auction + classified). But there is something much bigger at work here as everyone started to noodle on the bigger implication around data, ownership, business model and access.
I alluded to these issues in my last post on the ping server acquisition (weblogs.com) by Versign that the current “crawl” model for information indexing is simply not sustainable in the long run.
Information on the web is generated at lightning speed which makes these search engine indexes almost obsolete the moment it’s done crawling the site. For example if a search engine only crawls John Battelle’s Searchblog once a day (which is a privilege reserved for the chosen few) the index is irrelevant the moment John puts up another post (man, the guy is prolific). As a result, “push” indexing will go the ways of the dinosaur if the lifecycle content of the web continues to increase. (Remember how old the Google image index was last year? I think something like 6 month old! imagine if a blog search engine has a 6 month old index). As a result blog search engines use the ping/subscribe/crawl architecture which is a lot more efficient with fresher indexes.
GoogleBase is an attempt to take that one step further. Couched in the terms of faster index inclusion and traffic generation, Google wants to take your data directly into their hosting infrastructure. Screw pinging, directly update your data on Google Base! If that doesn’t sound scary perhaps we need to remember the uproar we had over Microsoft Passport and Plaxo’s initial hosted data model. Just because Google claims to “do no evil” doesn’t mean it can replicate MSN’s product model and get away with it. In a world where data is becoming more federated and open, Google is taking a page from a book of a bygone era.
I have my faith that federated, open, and “ping” is the better model for the future of the search engine evolution. Yes, the GoogleBase model is technically superior; but I’m not too sure we all want to live in a world singly built ontop of SkyNet Google. We’ve done that for the last 20 years with Microsoft, I don’t want to switch one master for another just when I see an inkling of change.
Hopefully much of the concern over data ownership can be addressed by the service’s terms of service and privacy policy. Plaxo for example explicitly states that as the member, “your information is your own” and that “You maintain ownership rights to Your Information, even if there is a business transition or policy change”. In looking at other services, I know that not all clearly state their position regarding the information maintained within their service. I feel this is something that user’s should pay greater attention to prior to using a particular service.
Stacy Martin
Plaxo Privacy Officer
Comment by Stacy Martin — October 28, 2005 @ 9:44 am
Your right Stacy, as an plaxo user, I liked the fact that I can opt-into/outof Plaxo replicating my contacts online or simply use Plaxo as a synchronization network. Ownership means that I can control the distibution of my information. Whether GoogleBase let me do that is a good question. Although given the Google’s history as a search engine, I highly doubt they will do it or even if its technically possible.
Comment by Administrator — October 28, 2005 @ 2:05 pm
GoogleBase will become a repository for commercial content–products/services. I cannot see any content-owner, that makes money from publishing the content, to put that content into Googlebase. That’s your crown jewels and you’d be allowing Google to monetise that content, in ways that you cannot. Google becomes much more of a competitor rather than a partner in distribution.
And search will become less important in news/features/blogs, because consolidation within the mediasphere will result in people knowing where to go online. Direct bookmarks will win over search in this area.
Search for commercial products will be the main use of search engines, imho.
Comment by Tom Foremski — November 1, 2005 @ 1:32 pm
I am very slowly starting to come around to this point of view. We very much exist in an information-driven economy. He who has the data makes the rules. Google can innocently collect this data and never use any personally identifiable information, but they still stand to make immense profits simply off having the information so easily accessible in huge quantities. I don’t like to hear about the threat to craigslist. Little mom-and-pop-style sites like that are the only traditions the Internet has, and not be taken over by what has become a corporate monolith.
Google has been a bit too successful, too fast for my liking. Their search and email offerings are hard to turn down, but I fear the disaster that could result from too much of the internet and people’s access to information (read: Internet service in San Francisco, maybe across the US) getting into the wrong hands. With a management change (who knows, perhaps under existing management), Google could subtly color the news that people read and influence the outcomes of future elections, fashion, trends, purchasing behavior, perhaps whatever they wish. Let’s be very sensitive lest the democratic internet should proceed too hastily into a dictatorial trap.
Comment by Brian — November 8, 2005 @ 5:29 pm