IP Democracy: Google Base Launches...What Is It Again?

OK, Google Base, the much-anticipated online classified/eBay/everything killer application launched late yesterday and everybody is excited about it. According to the official Google Blog

Google Base enables content owners to easily make their information searchable online. Anyone, from large companies to website owners and individuals, can use it to submit their content in the form of data items. We’ll host the items and make them searchable for free.

In essence Google Base allows all users to put information on the web even if they lack web sites or blogs or any other formal structure for putting content on the Internet. John Battelle hails the development as a way of GETTING INTO THE INDEX, because if you or your product or your recipe or your yard sale or whatever are not in Google, you don’t exist.

if it’s not in the index, it’s not considered valuable in a search-driven world. This, of course, is a new way to Get Into The Index. We’ve only just begun…

I understand the import of what Google is doing, but don’t really grasp the impact Google Base might have, and am a little skeptical of its utility. Unless the content is considered highly “relevant,” it stays in Google Base and doesn’t migrate to the main search index or Froogle or other high-value search options. How many people will search Google Base compared to these other options?

Secondly, if this stuff makes it into the main search index, will it be sufficiently differentiated? Randomly submitted recipes are good things (they’re already all over the Internet now) but if I want a sure-fire way to make blueberry pie, I’d rather locate a recipe that comes with some kind of endorsement or has gone through some kind of vetting process (even if it’s a post to a cooking website) rather than simply submitted to Google Base.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on November 16, 2005 8:05 AM to IP Democracy