I'm sure many of you have heard about Google Base (which seems to currently be down). Here's was Google has to say about it:

Quote:

Google Base is Google's database into which you can add all types of content. We'll host your content and make it searchable online for free.

Examples of items you can find in Google Base:

• Description of your party planning service
  
• Articles on current events from your website
  
• Listing of your used car for sale
  
• Database of protein structures
  

You can describe any item you post with attributes, which will help people find it when they search Google Base. In fact, based on the relevance of your items, they may also be included in the main Google search index and other Google products like Froogle and Google Local.

Pretty vague, but Ars Technica has some decent speculation about its future.

Crazy. If eBay, Craigslist, etc require listing fees AND ad revenue, makes you wonder how Google can do it on ad revenue alone... or if eBay and such really need annoying ads. The more profit, the better; that's the capitalistic way.

Anyone want to start a Google-Base-Watch to predict just how soon it will be ravaged by overzealous and fraudulent "businesses"? Perhaps this is similar to Google's newsgroup posting feature; allow anyone to put content on the internet, without server access.

Regardless, Google is starting to get too big. Personally, I like multiple companies for multiple products/services similar to using multiple devices for multiple uses. When one starts to take them all over (ie: Yahoo circa 1998), it gets scary.

Neither eBay nor Craigslist "need" ads. In fact I've never even seen a third-party ad on eBay. They only showcase their own 'ads' and listings. And eBay has a 25% stake in Craigslist, so that place can afford to run perpetually gratis if management wanted it to. I do notice they have some text ads.

Google advertising brings in huge money. Just look at how much some people make using adsense (Engadget alone is on target for making about US$1 million this year through that alone). Even if Google's take was the same as what they pay out, all-told that would be a decent whack of cash. But they're also thinking long-term. I don't think any of their "products" are anywhere close to the potential their brainiacs are envisioning.

So if you think the current state of affiars is scary, then you'd probably wet yourself if you spent a day as a fly on the walls at Google's HQ.

Bruno

I'm amazed that so much money is made off Google's advertising. It appears SO spammed by illegitimate websites with ads blatantly scraping your search terms:
Great deals on <search term> on eBay
Visit <your-search-term>-for-sale.com
and of course:
Get a great mortgage rate
Meet great singles in your area TONIGHT

And trying to search for product information only brings up acres of illegitimate Yahoo Stores, phoney review sites, and link-spam indexes/directories/searchengines.

Google, like all resources available to mankind, has been ravaged, strip mined, and left for dead. Thankfully, they restored Google Groups to its original functionality; for a while, its results were total crap. Oh well, at least Images is fun for the spatially inclined like myself.

The Information Trash Heap. You have to know where to look, because a search engine sure won't tell you. I should act on my idea to reinvent the directories of the early 90's; individual guys posting their list of trusted websites. Skip the irrelevant search results, browse my trusted directory.

Wow, that was a tangent........ maybe I'm burning out on Information Technology......