Thursday, December 01, 2005

Microsoft set to follow Google on online listings (FT)

Microsoft is set to follow Google into the online listings business, opening a new front in the rapidly expanding competition between the two technology companies and creating a new competitor to other newspaper and internet listings services.

While the idea echoes Google Base, an online listing service which the search engine company launched in beta, or test, form two weeks ago, Microsoft said it had been developing the idea behind Fremont since early this year.

Google Base has become the subject of heated debate among analysts and bloggers, some of whom have been quick to attribute grand ambitions to the new service.

As a structured database that invites internet users to enter information in a prescribed form – for instance, the price of a house would be entered in a box headed “price” on a form specially designed for house sales – Google Base would create a highly organised body of data that could form the basis for a wide range of future services.

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