Jim Moore’s blog: Innovation, Strategy, Public Policy

A rule of Web 2.0 is that the spider does the work. 

Let’s say, for example, that you have something you want to say to
others.  You can email it–which has you doing the work.  You
can put it in a central database, where others can find it (as in a
forum, eBay, Craig’s List) if they go and search the database. 
This is still a lot of work.  Or you can just put it in your blog
or other distributed source, and let a spider come in, pull in what you
have made available, and do the distribution for you.

This, note, is the real power of Google.  The spider does the
work.  You put stuff on your blog or your web site and, pow,
Google spiders come in during the night, take the material, and put it
into their database, all organized and ready to go.

But a subtle feature of Google enabled a new wave of innovation, by allowing site-specific Google searches.

Now what is happening in Web 2.0 is that folks are now learning to communicate with spiders in a more specialized way.

Folks can set up site-specific Google searches that keep track of categories, titles,  references, or tags.

This uses Google as a general-purpose query machine and report generator, and uses one or more sites as the repository of data.

Viola!  No more centralized, user-administered database. 
Instead, the user puts data anywhere he or she wants, and the spider
does the work.  Then the user can go to the spider’s web, Google,
and gain access to what the spider has assembled.

The spider does the work.