Some thoughts on Google Base and citizen generated media

I'm
late to the party to comment on Google Base, but thats the luxury
of being unemployed! Over the summer, I developed a framework for
thinking about user generated content and what was the right format to
take advantage of it:

A/ One right answer (e.g. encyclopedia definition, best way to clean
things, lyrics for a particular song, synopsis of a TV show) > wiki
B/ Many right answers (e.g. books reviews, recipes, photos of a person
or thing) > User generated searchable, taggable and sortable database
C/ No right answer (e.g. op-ed, debate about politics, religion,
current events) > Blogs, message boards, chatrooms

This explains for example why wikipedia has been successful, but
wikitorials (LA Times) or even wikipes (recipes) have not - wrong
choice of platform for the content type. Similarly successful examples
of type B include Hotornot.com, and Amazon's book reviews.

The thesis was that "community"/citizen generated media is interesting
not because its user generated, but because its free/cheap. And as with
all all content, evergreen content is more valuable, which makes
classes A and B more interesting than class C above.

As is often the case, Google builds technology and not necessarily
products. And in this case, they've built in Google Base an excellent
platform for all the verticals that lie in class B. By opening this up
to the public, they are hoping to see what grows organically in their
petri dish, rather than seeding the petri dish with specific verticals.
Its slower to start but takes a lot of risk out for them. So thinking
about this purely through the "classifieds" lens (as some have done) is
I think too narrow an interpretation of what Google Base will enable
for Google. Ebay, Hotjobs et al should certainly watch nervously, but
so too should everyone from CitySearch to epinions to Cooking.com