Our job is to help acquire all the world’s content
I had seen this a couple of years ago, but noticed it again the other day while having a discussion about Google Latitude and its noteworthiness or lack thereof. I have obviously sided with the noteworthy crowd, not because Latitude represented particularly novel technology from Google, but rather because Google is the 800lb gorilla, and when they adopt and even promote something, it’s noteworthy because of the sheer volume of people they reach. That and information is like oxygen to the company so they need to continue to promote the creation of digital information.
From a Google Job Description in their Geo/Core Content Group.. I thought that the inclusion of “retail product inventories” was particularly interesting, particularly as it relates to where Google may be going with Latitude… bye bye searching for bits, hello searching for atoms? The relevant part:
“Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information – our team’s job is to help acquire all the world’s content… The full breadth of content acquired by the team almost defies description; scope includes multiple forms of media in categories as diverse as: business addresses, event descriptions, restaurant reviews, retail product inventories, real estate listings, government data, and travel-related information.”
