Google builds Techmeme - why?

Google Blog Search has changed - it used to be a less-than-OK version of Technorati, its now trying to copy Techmeme / Memeorandum. Looking at the Tech section vs Techmeme, three observations (here's a copy of the output)

:

(i) Its not clear how priority works - this is from the front page, note the rise in No of Blogs talking about a subject from 13 up to 17 up to 25 as it goes down the page (rather than receding), and a seemingly random no. of hours selected.

(ii) One think I like in Techmeme is you see all the blogs commenting on the front page, and you can see their headings by clicking on an expansion button, thus not having to leave the page. This is because I have specific people I like to read, rather than the standard "clamp on" tech news blogs all reporting the same story. Here I don't get that visibility without a click through

(iii) There are only 10 stories per page - one of the good things about Techmeme is you can scroll down a load of stories without leaving teh page, makes it much easier to use - especially on small screens or slower connections like many mobiles

TechCrunch points out the nub of it:

at this point it’s too early to tell if Google Blogsearch will be more useful than any of the other memetrackers (or if its even in the same league). Much of its utility will lie in how often the listings are updated, how many sources it pays attention to, and how it assesses a blog’s credibility - a memetracker is only as good as the stories it presents.

- and as a number of people noted in the comments (and I found vs Technorati) Google seems to picks up the blog posts far later.

So far, not so good then

But the bigger issue for me is why is Google copying all these things (Wikipedia with Knol, Firefox with Chrome, MS / Open Office, etc - and here, initially Technorati and now Techmeme with Google Blogs) ? Clearly Google is looking at every service that has high traffic and thinking "we'll have some of that" as the benefit to them is they sell Ads to their own pages. (There are no Ads on Blog Search yet, but no doubt they will come). Not only that, it captures extra user data for a spot of mining.

The issue is this potentially distorts competition as badly as anything Microsoft or IBM ever did in their heydays - the fear that Google will build an X the minute one succeeds in anything, and subsidise it via its other operations so the original player can't succeed, must be an issue.

I wonder which Googlestraw will be the last one before the anti-trust camel is backed?

Afterpost - Fred Wilson I think articulates a key point, in that aggregation is not good enough, you need filtering and insight:

But it's like a lot of Google's services. All algorithm and no "voice". It may attract a mainstream audience the way Google News has and that's fine. But for me, it's not close to the value that I get from aggregators with an angle. It's like a mainstream newspaper versus a blog. On one you get the news and on the other you get insight.

I also saw this related post, that the algorithms are already being spammed by pay for post blogging.