Google Base: Whatever You Want It To Be But Is It An Advance?

After weeks of speculation, Google Base Beta is open for business. Think of it as a searchable and hosted all-things-to-all-people community database, where online and offline content can be tossed in and found as long as the user gets the attributes (ie tags or what Google calls “labels”) right and avoids exclamation points. The more popular specific attributes become, Google promises, “the more often we’ll suggest them when others post the same items.” If items are relevant enough — as determined by Google — the content could end up on its more traditional search sites like the main search index, Froogle and Google Local.
Those last sites search for information distributed around the web; this is the first major in-house effort by Google that allows self-selection and direct input. Info can even be posted in bulk. The result could make Google gaming look like tiddlywinks but Google says users will have to adhere to editorial guidelines as well as program policies. No repeated punctuation, no exclamation points in titles (take that, craigslist), no excessive capitalization. Google reserves the right to refuse items — the program policies includes a long list of no-nos including explosives, magic mushrooms, non-consensual adult material, body parts.
Salar Kamangar, a Google VP for product management, told the WSJ (sub. req.): “Some people will use it for posting commercial things, but I’m not sure at all that it’s going to be a primary usage.”
The NYT looks into the future and sees Base as the major classified ad threat people have been expecting from Google. Classified ad partners like CareerBuilder are watching closely.

Danny Sullivan finds some interesting aspects in his first look but doesn’t sound too impressed: “How heavily labels will be used as part of the ranking process remains to be seen. But I already have seen enough to find the entire thing a big giant step backwards.” He adds, “I’ve got no doubt we’re about to see a significant number of site owners start submitting and tagging their information in Google Base, in hopes they’ll do better with Google itself. I suspect the result will be a lot of waste time and Google Base getting overrun with spam. But perhaps I’m wrong, and time will tell.”

Related: The Google Base Guessing Game Continues

Google On Verge Of Launching User-Created Database?

Comments have been disabled for this post