Information as a commodity

Hot on the heels of Google Base, it looks like Microsoft is getting ready to release a service to host classified ads. They are of course both chasing Craig’s List which at first glance seems to be copying eBay.

But there is something deeper that is going on here. eBay is an auction site where people can buy and sell other people’s “stuff”. eBay is just a convient place for them to gather. Craig’s List expanded on this idea by allowing people to have on-line “Classified Ads” like you would see in a newspaper, which can be for goods and services (or anything else you can think of). Google and Microsoft now seem to be wanting to take this idea out a few more steps.

What is striking to me about this is that basically a business model is being built around the idea of selling information. Obviously this is something that has been done from the beginning of time, but now this seems to be happening more and more on the internet which in the past has been a bastion for “free” information.

Granted, the information is still free in that people can see it with out paying for it (much like going to a library), but now major companies are willing to get involved because it looks like this has the potential to be big business. On Slashdot today there is an article where they mention that classified ads are expected to reach $13.8 billion dollars by 2007. That’s only 13 months away!

If that number is anywhere close to true, I wonder how sustainable it will be. After all, nothing attracts a crowd like money. The more money that is generated in this sector, the more people there will be trying to get a piece of the action. For example there is a site called Wordtracker that will send you a weekly email with the top 300 search terms (as they have determined from their sources). Armed with a list like that a person could target certain topics to capitalize on the traffic that they would generate.

Buying information to make money selling other information. Doesn’t that just sound strange? But its the way things have worked for a long time, it will just be interesting to see how this turns out.