I just read Jeff Jarvis’ post on Google Base and he makes some excellent points.
Google Base has a lot of problems. The big one for me is that it is another centralized content play, when all of the really interesting content is created at the edge. Jeff points out some other issues with Base, including the fact that the data is not only centralized but there is no API for non-Google search engines to access the data.
I like what he says about microformats and the need to better leverage all the great blog content out there. He talks about putting tags on blog reviews to make them more findable – a very good idea.
I’m working on a post at TechCrunch on Riffs, a new company I saw on Fred Wilson’s blog today. Riffs is yet another centralized content service…and I think companies like these are going to have a lot of trouble getting users to come to them and create content. Do we need Riffs when everyone seems very happy writing reviews directly on their blogs? And if the answer is not everyone blogs, then how do we get them to start? Jeff seems to be on the right track.
what if riffs let you post to your blog, like flickr does wiht photos and blip and youtube do with video
then it becomes the easiest way to post a review.
they don’t do that yet, but how hard would it be to do that?
not very hard
Then why don’t people post encyclopaedia entries on their blogs and why do they post on Wikipaedia instead?
I think you, and Jeff, are dead wrong on the centralized content hypothesis. There are just too many examples (continued momentum of Tripadvisor in travel even when travel is one of the most popular blog topics) that suggest otherwise.
I agree Google base was off the mark and should have been more about upgrading Blogger (http://brontemedia.com/2005/11/17/open-letter-to-google-base-product-manager/) but that does not mean centralized content is a bad thing.
Fred, Instead of data coming out of Riffs and into the blog, it should be the other way around. People express themselves on their blog, and companies like Riffs should grab that content, aggregate it, and do something interesting with it.
Niki, any authoritative work on a subject, such as an encyclopedia, should be a collaborative work and a wiki is absolutlely perfect for that kind of project. But wiki’s are hammers, and not everything is a nail.
Some content makes more sense centralised, at least now when most services don’t play nice together, however I would agree that the vast majority of content is better decentralised if at all possible. In fact, eventually, it’s all better decentralised, but until the services play nice some things (like bookmark data ie del.icio.us) only works if you keep it all in the same place.