Do you remember when you were a kid and someone in your class got the most amazingly cool toy or book or pants? But let’s consider specifically the toy here. So for a while everyone is hanging out with the cool kid because of his or her cool toy and even though there’s some imbalance (one kid is way cooler than the rest) that is ok because there’s some interaction. People are benefitting. It’s even possible that there’s not just the one really cool kid but there might be several cool kids with different cool toys. But after a while something happens…
A bunch of the mediocre kids go to their parents asking, no begging, for the cool toy. They get it (spoiled) and not only is the original cool kid not as cool anymore, the toy starts to get a little boring too. Let’s pretend that the toy is actually practical so they keep on using it but it seems like it does not work as well as it did before.
The whole Microsoft digging into the classifieds world kinda reminds me of that. I really wish they would just leave it alone because in the end they will probably not do it right. Sure, there’s Google Base trying to get in on the action, but Google is like the cool kid that is cool regardless of what toys he has. Everyone wants to be around him all the time. Microsoft should leave the classifieds to Craigslist. Craigslist is one groovy girl loved by all and she doesn’t expect anything in return for her friendship.