Buygoogle reported three weeks ago that people have uploaded a lot of junk into Google Base, and cited Greg Linden's post about how to keep the crap out. The examples cited in the original post (including a profile of Eric Schmidt from the infamous CNET article, and a recipe for "crap on a stick") have since been removed. So it appears that there are at least two fewer junk items in Google Base now - though I had posted a nearly identical item to the removed Eric Schmidt item, and it's still live.
Others have observed big spikes in porn and spam that start in Google Base and migrate to Froogle.
In another post I'd noted that there's a single tab for "my items," and room for many other tabs. Will we soon see "bookmarked items" or "my friends' items" added? Will Google Base employ some kind of "social recommendation engine" to keep the crap out?
If Base is really the first building block of the Google Grid, then it will need to allow users to publish to groups they define (myself, my family, my friends, coworkers, the world), and allow people to subscribe to your content and tag or rank it. And because 90% of everything is crap, Google will need some method like this to surface quality results from a sea of junk.
 |
| Google's prospects from a Google user and independent investor |
Keeping the crap out of Google Base - part 2 - 12/07/2005 02:45:00 PM
| |
Feed the AI - 12/05/2005 09:38:24 PM
The rumor is that Google will release a calendar product tomorrow. I hope it does, and I hope there's some Googly twist that makes their calendar the one to beat. And Google really needs a calendar product to help round out their portfolio of services. But a killer calendar won't provide lasting competitive advantage, since Yahoo, Microsoft and startups you've never heard of before will immediately begin copying and one-upping Google's work.
Buygoogle has stressed repeatedly that the savvy Google investor will be tuned in to the truly world-changing initiatives that only Google can (or will) do. These are projects that can't be easily copied by the competition due to the immense engineering challenges or the tremendous computing resources required to succeed. And it's clear that Google has some stunningly ambitious plans which, if realized, will justify a multiple of the company's current $120B valuation. George Dyson, the computer science historian and futurist, visited Google to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the von Neumann's digital "machine", and blogged this remarkable quote: My visit to Google? Despite the whimsical furniture and other toys, I felt I was entering a 14th-century cathedral — not in the 14th century but in the 12th century, while it was being built. Everyone was busy carving one stone here and another stone there, with some invisible architect getting everything to fit. The mood was playful, yet there was a palpable reverence in the air. So yes, Google is building more than just a portfolio of useful applications -- they're building something grand and world-changing. But what? "We are not scanning all those books to be read by people," explained one of my hosts after my talk. "We are scanning them to be read by an AI." Whoa. Shiver. An AI? Like Hal or C-3PO? No, probably more like a system that understands what you mean when you search, or a machine translation tool that provides far better results than the simple systems based on dictionaries and rules that we have now. Either one of these innovations could provide a dramatic and durable competitive advantage that would justify a market cap in the range of Microsoft ($296B) or GE ($378B). Who else but Google has the engineering talent, computing resources and vision to deliver on this promise? If they can pull it off, Google will change the world and make a shipload of money in the process. |
Google's corporate reputation - 12/05/2005 09:24:05 PM
From tomorrow's Wall Street Journal (sub req'd):
It takes most companies decades to build a great reputation. Google Inc. did it in seven years.Reputation is everything. Some say the "Don't Be Evil" culture doesn't scale -- I say it's a prerequisite for a company with Google's ambitions. |
| buygoogle.com |