Google snaps up another Web 2.0 company. This time it is Jotspot. Jotspot is a wiki platform allowing for groups to colloborate, including via spreadsheets, calendars, email and more. In my opinion, wikis have a promising future. Wikipidedia has already proven the model, but once wikis become popular in smaller niches we’ll really see what their potential is. Though I don’t know the terms of the deal, this was a smart purchase by Google (can’t say the same about YouTube).
If you look at Google’s purchases, most of them would be deemed software purchases rather than content purchases, which is good. They are products that help people find things or enable them in some way. When Google starts purchasing content sites, I’ll be worried. Who wants their content finder to also be the content producer? Its like the many AOL users who don’t realize their is a whole “Web” to discover outside of the AOL blinders.
Of the major search engines, Yahoo seems to be most inclined to buy content sites. Google base was a project where Google came close to being a “publisher.” The project has changed over time and I must say I was unimpressed with it. Spending 5 minutes in base, you’ll easily see why most people choose to go to the existing leaders in job listings, real estate, autos, hotels, recipes, etc.