On Friday 17th of December, from The Google Merchant Blog, Google announced New Shopping APIs and Deprecation of the Base API…
The new Shopping Application Programming Interfaces ( API’s) have two main components : Content and Search. As part of this launch, we’re are (sic) also sunsetting the Base API and replacing it with these new shopping API’s.
Sunsetting the Base API ! Not only sunsetting but…
We are deprecating the Base API and will fully decommission it on June 1, 2011.
And they go on to say…
There are a few non-shopping data types that won’t be supported with new Shopping APIs, such as jobs, real estate, events, and activities. We hope this won’t cause too much disruption, …
So, is this it Google and Real Estate ( other than being a search engine) ?
Will they still be accepting Real Estate feeds in to Base but not allowing them out?
Have they decided Real Estate is a white elephant from within, or has there been some outside pressure applied?
There are so many questions to ask…
I guess it’s up to Google, they way they want to run their business, and we just accept their conclusions, but I do find it interesting they have chosen to not pursue two highly active markets such as Jobs and Real Estate.
The strange thing is though, recently out of the blue was a new look Google Real Estate look which like the Loch Ness Monster appeared in my browser and within hours was gone again. It distinctively showed a a cleaner look and gave me the impression that they were about to get more serious with Real Estate.
and then it was gone…but i did get a photo !
Was is it a bluff?
Are they serious?
What do you think?