Property Grunt

Friday, November 18, 2005

Embrace The Base

Yesterday as the Grunt was walking to work, he had an epiphany. I was pondering the aftermath of Google Base and my previous entry. I was wondering how the newspaper world could survive. Then it came to me. Newspapers would simply embrace the Base. Since Google Base has an option where users can simply insert a url that goes straight to their website all newspapers need to do is to insert their content into google base ads.

For example, New York Times sets up a squad of interns to sit in a room with a bunch of desktops. Their goal is to insert 100 ads a piece onto Google Base or whatever new ads come onto that day. This would insure another point of traffic for the New York Times. The beauty of this model is that the overhead is nearly nonexistent. I am unsure how the New York Times internships work but internships are usually unpaid and even if they are probably at pay 10 bucks an hour at the most. More importantly Google Base is free.

Would an intern be willing to put in those hours to simply sit in front of computer putting in ads? Let me put it this way. When I was an intern I once risked life and limb during one of the biggest snowstorms to deliver a manuscript to Barbara Walters.

College kids need experience particularly if they want to work in the media field. But that experience does not come cheap. It involves a tremendous amount of sweat equity doing mind numbing tasks like ordering lunch and stuffing envelopes. The payoff for a job well done is not the grade but the contacts you make and the job you eventually get.

As long as the intern is willing to play office monkey for free, then New York Times will be free to embrace the base.