Google's community search

Google's analyst day thoughts. 1) Google is testing out community-based searches along the lines of the companies I've been writing about, such as PreFound (Tuesday's Net Sense), Plum, Jeteye and Kaboodle. Google's Co-op product (in beta of course) is a way for thought-leaders, guides, experts to share their searches. Essentially, anyone can sign up by going to Google.com/coop and create a page of things they've searched for and assign or label it with a topic that can be searched by someone else. Similar to the other aforementioned services I had written about, I can create a topic, say "Hawaii" and put all the information I searched about into that page. Others can collaborate on that topic as well. That page is public for others to search on. As an expert on that topic Hawaii, I become a guide of sorts. It's the About model reborn. The difference is that these guides are found in a search paradigm. With Google's co-op program, the search giant can create verticals rich with information created by people. I think it's a great idea because communities do add a layer of relevance above and beyond what machines can do.
2) Google's Schmidt said that social networks are great, but they don't make any money. He was elaborating on a question I asked about whether MySpace having its own search engine would be a concern to Google. He said that he'd like to get involved with social networks by helping them make money. I asked if he had to partner with these communities, like MySpace. He just smiled, suggesting that I could probably figure out whether Google would want to or not.  3) I asked if Google is building AdWords for video, and whether he thought AdWords for video would work. He said that if someone invents AdWords for Google, he'd check it out. 4) I was testing out my Logitech Webcam to do video interviews. It worked fine when I interviewed Esther Dyson, but unfortunately, by the time I tried to interview Google executives, it didn't work. Oh well. Technology isn't perfect. For instance, all day Google's WiFi network failed to work.