signor_john - 2:52 pm on Sep 26, 2009 (gmt 0)

google aren't providing any content of their own. they are just taking it from other people, watering it down, and making money off it with their own ads.

But they're doing it better than their competitors are, partly because of the maps and partly because they're likely to attract more user input because of their ubiquity and brand name. In any case, unless you're in the business of creating template-based directories with pages that consist of a name, an address, and an invitation to write a review, why should you feel threatened?

IMHO, the moral or takeaway message here is pretty obvious: Don't base your sites and income on automated techniques that the big guys (including Google) can do better than you can. Google can do things like search and Google Maps better than you can. Tripadvisor can attract and aggregate user-written hotel reviews better than you can. Facebook can do social networking more successfully than you can. What those largely automated megasites can't do (or don't want to do) is publish the kind of labor-intensive, human-created and edited content that real people (such as editors, professional writers, academics, and other subject experts) do best.

To use an an analogy, if McDonald's moves into the neighborhood, it's more likely to take business away from White Castle, Burger King, and A&W than from the Johnny Rockets franchise, the '50s-style "malt shop" theme restaurant, or the bar that sells grilled half-pound cheeseburgers on rye. And if it's any consolation, Google--unlike McDonald's--will actually send you customers if you're in a niche that it doesn't serve.