While Craigslist and eBay have been a frustration for newspaper publishers, Google Base will be the biggest disruption of newspaper advertising yet. It will cause an urgent response from publishers. There are several reports online about Google Base including: This report at Business Week. And a more detailed report at searchenginewatch – this includes details of an official Google announcement.
Based on the database entry screens, Google Base is gathering all the data it needs to compete with newspaper classifieds and the major online portals like tradingpost.com.au, reasestate.com.au, carsales.com.au, seek.com.au etc. So, not only will newspaper publishers need to respond but so will online classified portals.
Consumers like free. The obvious pitch of the paid sites and newspapers is the strength of their brand. They’ll say people will use Google Base as an ad-on. Maybe so. At the lower end of the market if Google gets its offering right and can connect with the community it will be game over in terms of online and newspaper models.