Microsoft's Answer to Google Base

douglips writes "Today Information Week is reporting on a forthcoming service from Microsoft intended to compete with Google Base. Instead of the freewheeling anything-goes nature of Google Base, the Microsoft project code named 'Fremont' will focus solely on classified ads. It will also allow restricting items to various audiences such as social networks or domain names. At this point, though, it appears to be a beta restricted to Microsofties." From the article: "In building Freemont, Wiseman and his five-person crew tried to make it both personal for people who only want to trade among family, friends and colleagues, while also providing the option of a public posting. Classifieds is a growing piece of the booming online advertising market that's expected to reach $13.8 billion by 2007, surpassing advertising spent on magazines, according to JupiterResearch. During that timeframe, spending on display ads and online classifieds together are expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 25 percent. "

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This reminds me of the bandwagons poor pony...

[3seas]

... as more people get on the band wagon the harder it is for the pony to pull it.... and the market gets strained....

of course the difference here is going to be determined by how well such online classified reduce the use of ebay....

And there is nothing stopping google or anyone else from also providing such classified service.

Why would MS be announcing this now?

T0 get the competition going or are they just market testing?

If the market isn't there, and they drop it... it won't be the first time.... that is what market testing is for... and MS is really little more than a marketing company...

Who knows, maybe the traditional paper based classified publishers, who really know teh ins and outs of alot of the process, have never thought of doing it online...

MS wants a piece of which pie now?

Haven't commented on Base yet...

[lpangelrob]

...but I would like to hear from users... is there any particular reason to put most of your life online? I haven't used the service at all yet, especially since all the kinks aren't worked out of it.

I can understand people knowing that my car is a 2004 Honda Civic. Maybe Google will try to sell me parts, and maybe they can provide me with an online car maintenance schedule automatically as part of their master plan to dominate all information. But what else do they ask for? What else do they want to know?

Is it basically a volunteering of household and personal financial information, much like MyPoints is (only you earn 'points' there. Not dissing, I worked there.)?

I'm genuinely interested in the benefit to the user, and not just 'because it's a Google service and it's there'.

Re:Restrict classified ads to your social network?

[pflinton]

Maybe but this analyst mentions a few reasons you may want to restrict the audience for a posting.