chiyo - 4:13 am on Dec 12, 2002 (gmt 0)

Interesting. Webpages. Images. News. now Shops.

It's Google accepting that people have very different reasons for entering those keywords in a search engine box.

If you want to search for information, you may not necessarilly want breaking news.
If you want to search for info, you may not necessarilly want to buy something.
If you want to buy something you may not neccessarily want breaking news and info.

It's just another step in the direction of trying to provide the best results for a given query.

How does this threaten mom and pops cindysunc? Are you talking about affiliate sites?

It might well threaten affiliate sites, but my own view is that the affiliate model is an idea that has reached its peak. Affiliate models worked only while search engines were unable to find the actual source as well as they do now and in the future. I know that many will disagree with me, but the affiliate model, while not ever dying out, will become less viable in the future and has already passed it's "golden age".

For a user, Froogle looks good to me. It seems focused and very good for people doing dedicated searches.