Vertical Search and "walled gardens"

Bill Burnham offers yet another fascinating observation of the continuing morphing of Google from only search to ....

"There has been a lot of commentary about Google Real Estate’s beta launch earlier this week. It turns out that Google also is quietly testing a similar service for cars and jobs as well. Both the real estate launch and the car launch take data from Google base and integrate it with Google Maps, providing a consumer friendly front end to the database. (My guess is that the appearance of both services this week probably has something to do with the release of Google Maps’ 2.0 API). With the launch of these Google Base front-ends, Google is clearly putting into place the major pieces required to support its vertical search platform. Broadly speaking, such a platform requires 4 major pieces..."

Continue reading Bill's article here. (Really, is it any wonder why eBay/EBAY has become so ridden with fleas that it now barks in the night?)
-- David M Gordon / The Deipnosophist