The days of the “Wild, Wild Internet West” are back!

I read a very interesting article this morning. The competition between eBay and Google is heightening as we speak. The media believes that with their GoogleBase offering, Google is stomping full force into eBay territory. I admit, Googlebase is a great concept and Google certainly has their share of "eyes"; but they are no threat to eBay, at least not yet. What google has going for them is their "feedback" system. If Google can leverage search in order to aggregate a true feedback score across multiple internet sites and venues, then I think they have a winner. Roll the "e-commerce" portion of Googlebase off as a separate site with the Google pay functionality, now that might give eBay some cause for worry. Let's not forget the other players; Microsoft and Yahoo!. Microsoft and Yahoo! have the most to gain from the "perceived" turf war between Google and eBay. EBay is clamoring to build new relationships with both companies in an effort to thwart Google's push into ecommerce. The bottom line is that Google base is not the vehicle that will help Google break into this market; they are just testing the waters.

Sources: Changing marketplace strains Google, eBay relationship