With the dust yet to settle with the announcement of GoogleBase, Microsoft has at least been a little more honest with its crack at the classified / small ads market place. Earlier this month a thinly based attempt at Craigslist was launched called Base;
“Google Base is a place where you can easily submit all types of online and offline content that we’ll host and make searchable online …….. may be included in the main Google search index and other Google products like Froogle, Google Base and Google Local.”
Codenamed ‘Fremont’, Microsoft is in testing stages of a classified ads platform that will allow the free listing of merchandise and events coupled with some sort of social aspect. To be part of the ‘Live’ platform, listings will be made available to friends, groups or made available to the public. Integrated with ’Windows Live Local’, formerly ‘Virtual Earth’, initial impressions are supposed to be very good.
Personally I’m looking forward to what Microsoft does in the next few months, there’s a lot of hype about and Microsoft is making some sweeping changes to its business model in an attempt to stay number 1. Google is making big wavesthough and an indicator of how threatening company is viewed when your competitors feel the need to differentiate themselves from them. In an interview with CNET’sNews.com, Garry Wiseman of Microsoft said,
“We started this before anyone knew about Google Base. Having seen what Google Base is doing, I don’t think they were aiming for a classifieds service,”
