Google Base service goes live

Google's mysterious Google Base service went live late on Tuesday, allowing people to post any kind of information they want for free and to provide labels to describe it so others can easily find it.

The new beta service allows people to post "all types of online and offline information and images" that will be searchable on Google Base and, depending on their relevance, may be searchable on Google Search, Froogle and Google Local, the company said.

"If you have information you want to share with others, but aren't sure how to go about gaining an audience, Google Base is for you," said the frequently asked questions section of the new service.

Google has no immediate plans to serve ads on Google Base, a company spokesman said. Examples given of items people might want to post include party and event planning services, recipes, a used car listing and genome of the 1918 influenza pandemic.

"Students need as much information as possible when they are searching for the right college or university. Google Base helps us reach students and parents and deliver more of the information they need when making important college decisions," said Hal Higginbotham, president of CollegeBoard.com, as quoted on the Google Blog.

While some observers have speculated that Google is targeting the online classifieds market space, specifically eBay and Craigslist, with the service, a Google executive denied that that is the company's intent.

Marc Leibowitz, Web search and syndication director, said Google merely wants to serve people who have information to share that is not already on a Web site and being crawled by a search engine to open it up to the public. In addition, much of the information in Google Base is expected to be noncommercial, a Google spokesman said.

"We think about it being a utility so people can more efficiently post information to us. If there is more information in the search results the search experience is better," Salar Kamangar, a vice president of product management at Google, told CNET News.com on Wednesday. "It is not a separate property we are trying to monetize. We are not at all focused on commerce or local commerce or classifieds."

After screen shots of Google Base were leaked on the Web last month, the search giant confirmed it was testing a new service.

[SqlserverCode]

Google is taking over the world

Google is taking over the world, they already have maps, listings, search, blogs, video, books, shopping (Froogle) and that's not all of course

What's next? TV on demand and Music?
In 10 years you will only need Google
Evil Empire in the making?

http://sqlservercode.blogspot.com/

[VI Joker]

Not until...

... they get hit with being a monopoly. Once that happens then they are certified for being on the road to taking over the world. :)

[djpaisley]

All Your Base Are Belong to Google

Somebody set us up the bomb.

[hlh_nospam]

I, for one...

...welcome our new Google overlords. Meanwhile, could somebody please send me an invitation to Orkut? :)

[SystemsJunky]

WOW

Their products are so (innovative) Bland and boring. at least Apple and MS through lipstick on their pigs.

[TV James]

TV on demand

Well, you sort of get TV on demand with Google Video, for the moment it's limited to videos of my daughter laughing at my impersonation of handsome Rob around and other silly stuff like that.

But they are working on TV ads on demand, trying to use the same technology that serves the ads to websites to be able to play more relevant ads via cable boxes.

[boomtrek]

A new Microsoft? Google may be king of the Web...

I would agree... but I think it may not be that "we only need Google" but perhaps in 10 years "we only can find Google", as broadband companies fight over bandwidth and peering, Google is building backbone networks and peering with some of the huge transport backbone networks that circle the world. Could it be a private network someday where nobody else can voice there opinions unless its on the "Google/OS" a private Google web? And, where your harddrive is stored online as a GDrive like I'm hearing people saying already that leaked from Google headquarters... Search is controlled by Google (who has 75% today) Yahoo/MSN (25%) Today, the Web 2.0 is all about social networking, but we all knew this day may come, a new era of Web 3.0 where we will no longer have any privacy over our internet lives. Windows Live also seems to be moving in this direction. Image, a web owned by a few big corporates that will lose its unbiased voice and the joint collaboration of millions of people with great ideas and plenty of choices, may fall into a proprietary abyss. http://www.boomtrek.com/

[ronaldl79]

It's the content, silly!

I've been evaluating Google Base this morning, and am quite impressed. Certainly, the initial phase doesn't have many bells and whistles, but the premise is quite simple: Content.

I think it's great that Google is allowing anyone to upload their own content. It's sure to put a new spin on getting information to the masses.

Ronald Lewis
Founder and Chief VoIP Architect
Riverscape
http://www.riverscapecorp.com

[nativebreed]

Google base - done it

Hi, 2 years ago i started a similar project at http://www.phpdevshed.com/codevault/index.php but got bored - should I countinue and expand the system to enable users to add files? If I do that, would I have my own base ;)

This is part of a much grander scheme

Check out this blog that explains google's grande plan.
It's a conspiracy blog.

http://gaggedwhistle.blogspot.com/2005/11/google-base-service-goes-live.html

[baratunde]

that blog is dead

what happened to it!? seemed to be there yesterday

[Stating]

Will Spamming Make It Unusable?

I frequently find that search results from Google are unuseable because of large scale search engine spamming. It is just too tedious to wade through pages of results trying to find legit sites. I suspect Google Base will suffer the same fate. True, there is a mechanism to report "bad items" but consider that armies of professional spammers and bot computers will be enlisted to thwart this. Craig's is able to keep the problem in check because of localization and a very active user base. I am not confident Google can replicate Craig's success in this arena.

One last thing. Why is it that Google products other than their search engine are still in beta? Gmail has been out for over a year now, and you still can't sign up unless you are invited. What's up with that? Do they ever plan on exiting beta for anything?

[anarchyreigns]

RE::Will Spamming Make It Unusable?

You've been able to sing up for gmail accounts without an invite for months now.

[anand_dh]

Google's covering their bases

Tagging is popular in some websites where users tag an article, photo or anything else and it helps others easily search using these tags. There is a possibility that this "Tagging" could become a threat to the search engine business in the future and google just wants to make sure it has a presence there. Take a look at the CNET article http://news.com.com/Tagging+gives+Web+a+human+meaning/2009-1025_3-5944502.html

[valnur]

We are in a similar market as Google Base but our product gives structure (while still not imposing any set of predefined categories) to our index and therefore makes it possible for users to not only perform keyword search but also browse hierarchically with the ability to specify unlimited number of filters to refine their search.

Valnur
http://www.valnur.com