From a Times (UK) article:
Now Google and Yahoo!, two of the internet’s most important pioneers, are to do battle over a deal that would see them embracing the world of “old” media for the first time.
The two US-listed companies, which between them had a market value of more than $126 billion (£70.2 billion) at close on Friday, are understood to have each approached Trader Classified Media, the Euronext-listed owner of 575 print titles, ranging from Canada’s Auto Trader magazine to Buy & Sell Chinese in the US, about a possible corporate tie-up.
Sources familiar with the discussions say that other firms, possibly including Ebay, the online auctioneer, have also made approaches.
Is this the beginning of the net being used for business purposes?
Remember IndustryNet or VerticalNet (how they started out) who were going to let you buy and sell stuff on the internet. VerticalNet was a collection of trade papers on the internet.
Is this a similar idea that Google, Ebay and Yahoo are waking up to?
The difference is, the actual content on IndustryNet or VerticalNet was still captive – I am thinking more of a Google for B2B – mining the internet for business data, putting structure and content around it so that business needing to connect, do analysis and search use the internet to do so. The content would be built up by communities – the search would provide the value.