Google Launches Database of Everything
 

Google’s much anticipated Google Base finally launches. Heralded in the media during the months and weeks leading to its launch as the application that may finally pierce the eBay and Craigslist juggernauts, its introduction has thus far garnered yawns and negativity.

Reminiscent of the proverbial story of a computer that anyone can ask about anything, Google Base is the search king’s new offering that lets users submit any type of online or offline content that can be made searchable online, whether it’s photos, documents, classified ads, jobs, or a recipe for Chicken Tikka Masala.

You post and describe any item and provide information about its characteristics (attributes) that helps people find it when they make a search in Google Base.

It isn’t directly an auctions marketplace or even a classified ads network. It’s actually something at a higher level that wants to include everything, from which auctions and classifieds are but a part.

For example, if you’re looking for classifieds, you normally do so with your local newspaper’s website or sites like Craigslist. With Google Base, you don’t have to just around in different sites, you simply stay in one place and do the search there.

This initially gave the spooks to many online operators as it practically “abstracts” them from the equation, removes their proprietary or at least website walls, and lets people access information in their listings from the comfort of another site, with the corollary being that their competitors’ listings are just as easily viewable.

This isn’t like the old times when your competitors’ sites are just a mouse click away-- it's even more fundamental because your competitors may be viewable from the same site, or even the same listing. And this is just one of the many possible examples, something that barely scratches the tip of the iceberg that Google Base could eventually become after more people use it and programmers play with its API.

So far however, the verdict has been mixed, with some expressing huge disappointment and others having a more positive or neutral tone, correctly suggesting that this is yet a very new application that brings with it a new paradigm of using information and knowledge.

Google is denying charges that it’s a direct aim at some of the Web’s largest players. But this may just be a ploy and Google being cagey so as not to ruffle too many feathers, particularly some of its potential competitors who just happen to be among the company’s biggest sponsors for its main advertising business, as it’s an application that certainly looks more like a foundation for greater things to come.

It is among Google’s signature offerings that push the boundaries of what’s current high-tech and asks you to reboot your brain. Unlike back-end databases like Oracle, Google Base is more of an applied, application database that users are meant to utilize for easily store anything and everything, heralding the moment when the “semantic web” makes landfall.

Google is also slowly integrating it with its many offerings. For example, if you click on its link for “Cars for Sale,” it will make a listing of cars available for sale with a link to the website of the seller, as well as a Google Map beside it plotting the location of the seller (assuming you’re logged in) and showing the nearest vehicles available. It is something that Google is sure to connect to its other offerings like Froogle.

Google’s proven to be a perpetual innovation machine, even though some of its offerings may not catch the public’s fancy or gets trounced by competitors (like Orkut, among others). But watch the space. This could be harbinger of things to come.